And What Came After
by HC0
Summary: In which Fiyero does not die, thus influencing Later Events. Written less as an expression of the ideal ending than an honest opinion of how the story could have progressed.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **_**Wicked**_** and all its accompanying everythings are the creation and property of Gregory Maguire.

* * *

**Fiyero was worried.

This wasn't much of a change, because he'd been desperately worried ever since he'd kissed Elphaba goodbye and wandered back to his hotel room to seclude himself for Lurlinemas Eve. And worry. About her. About Oz. What would happen, and how would it happen, and would his Elphie come out of it unhurt?

He wanted, so badly, to follow her. To look out for her? No, he admitted to himself, Elphaba was self-sufficient. But out of curiosity, if nothing else…but no. She'd told him to stay and stay he would. She knew what she was doing.

He wouldn't listen to her instructions about the bath, though. He had better things to do than sit in a bathtub and worry (not to mention that he would feel like a complete fool doing so). He could pace and worry, for example.

"Get a grip," he told himself sternly. "Nothing will come of wearing a hole in the carpet thinking of everything bad that could possibly happen. Find something to do. Eat dinner; it's Lurlinemas, for Lurline's sake." He didn't keep much food in his room, not since he'd moved in with Elphaba. Cut that.

Damn her, telling him to stay away from crowds; the whole_ city_ was crowds.

Fiyero wandered to the window. The lit-up streets below were full of little people in costume and evening dress and rags. Respectively. Little ants running around on a big patch of moss. The Palace glittered in the distance: menacingly, Fiyero thought, like the eye of a crouching dragon. Was Elphaba there? Was the Wizard perhaps at this moment being set upon by the revolutionaries?

He couldn't tell. Lurlinemas was a commotion in and of itself. He glanced at the clock: an hour past midnight. Elphaba had said he could come by eight the next morning. Seven hours to go. Subtract almost an hour to walk there, make that six. His average morning routine, stretched to the longest and laziest, could take almost an hour. Five hours. Preparing for sleep and trying and failing to do so. Four hours.

Would Elphaba so mind if he opened his window?

Maybe.

He realized that he had nothing to wear to bed—almost everything of his had made its way to Elphaba's. He took off his clothes and folded them very neatly, making sure that the creases were precise and killing fifteen minutes.

There was no sound of abnormal activity from outside the window.

Had the hand on his clock just moved_ backward_?

* * *

The next morning Fiyero awoke suddenly and completely rather early in the morning and realized that he'd managed, somehow, to fall asleep. He almost jumped out of bed before reminding himself of Elphaba's time limit. He checked his clock—seven. Grinning, he threw on his clothes, washed quickly, and bounded out the door without stopping for breakfast (Elphaba would have food for him, and if the mission had been pulled off he'd take her out to celebrate).

Even in the early morning, the City on Lurlinemas day was a mass of parties and a few devout citizens heading to services. Nothing seemed changed, and he didn't dare ask a civilian for fear of questioning. Elphaba would tell him.

Elphaba, Elphaba, it was all about Elphaba. He seemed to be relying on her for everything. So this was love. He swerved to avoid trampling a ragged man curled up in the middle of the sidewalk. He realized that this man looked familiar: He always slept here, and Fiyero always passed him on the way to Elphaba's.

He walked on, around the corners, past building shells, barely aware where he was turning; the route had become first nature to him. Ducking around a pile of wood, he saw the corn exchange slide into his line of vision. Grinning, he changed from a walk to a run. So he'd be a few minutes early, so Elphie would kill him.

Something looked different, but he couldn't tell from this far away. He couldn't think of what it was; perhaps a shadow was hanging differently. But as he drew closer he saw that the door was hanging off its hinges. Oh, _shit_. He slammed open the door and bolted up the stairs, stairs with muddy, bloody bootprints of Gale Forcers.

They'd been thorough, Fiyero saw as he entered the little room. Everything was smashed; books were lying about the floor, their pages torn; clothes and food were strewn about; the bed had been stripped and thrown every which way; the shelves rested at a crazy tilt. The cat was lying in a little crushed heap next to the stove, its white fur scarlet. Fiyero felt a tiny pang, he'd grown to enjoy Elphaba's pet. But more important was Elphaba herself, and he looked around the room frantically.

Had they taken her body? Please, no.

Then he saw her. She was a huddled mass in the corner, lying in a pool of something dark with her skirts were spread around her; in the dim light it looked as though she'd melted. "Elphaba!" he screamed, the sound coming out as a little gasp, and stumbled across the room to her.

"Yero," she muttered, and as beaten as her face was somehow managed the tiniest smilet. "Thank goodness, you sweet, wonderful fool, you're alright."

He didn't know where she was hurt. It looked like almost everywhere. "You're not…oh, Fae, what happened? The Gale Force, wasn't it?"

"They came in. Beat me. Thought they killed me, I guess. Close enough."

"Don't be ridiculous." His voice caught. "How did they know you were here?"

"Yero…was Malky. My little cat…fucking _informer_."

Pity dwindled away. Fiyero still loathed the Gale Force for killing Malky, but now because he wanted to strangle that cat, and _now_. "How long ago did this happen?"

"Hours. Maybe eight. Gale Force got in. Surprised me." She blinked away blood running into her eye. "Killed too, suppose. I love you."

"You're not dying," he snapped, even though she looked dead already. Why had he wasted all this time talking? "But you need a doctor."

"_No_." She said with so forcefully he reared back. "Not safe. Take me to Saint Glinda. They know us. Use…Phantom." She started to cough. Blood speckled Fiyero's sleeve. "Name. I'm not part…anymore…failed…they won't know."

The maunts at Saint Glinda. Name of Phantom. Got it. "Alright. Alright. I'm taking you now. Try not to move or talk." He eased her coat on and picked her up as gently as possible, but she still gasped.

"I'm sorry."

"Yes. If I die…keep going…love you."

"Don't be an idiot."

"I—"

"_Shh._ Shh." He kissed her forehead.

This wasn't how it was supposed to be, he reflected as he reached the bottom of the stairs. He was supposed to carry his bride over the threshold _into_ their home. And she was supposed to be married to him, and not bleeding all over him.

The streets were mostly deserted, which he was thankful for; the last thing he needed were curious people flocking over to see the spectacle of a green woman, of a Winkie, of his tattoos, of the blood, of everything under the bright, obliging sun. He didn't want to think about the main parts of the Emerald City, though. It was Lurlinemas Day, and the streets would be packed with plutocrats and burghers and little people trying to be big people, all leaving services to head to oratorios and shopping and parties.

He glanced down at Elphaba; she'd fallen unconscious and her head was hanging back over his arm, bobbing like a toy boat in a bathtub. Fiyero stopped to shift her to a safer position, and as he did so glanced up the street. A cab was coming, and Fiyero had a sudden inspiration. Praying that he wasn't doing any more damage, he put Elphaba down and supported her with an arm. She sagged against his shoulder as he motioned for the cab.

"The cab's here, honey," he said loudly enough for the cabby to hear. "I said, your ride is—is—" He shook her gently, and smiled apologetically up at the driver. "Flat-out drunk," he explained. "I'll just go with her. Could you take us to Saint Glinda's Square, please?"

The cabby grunted as Fiyero hoisted Elphaba back into his arms and climbed into the cab. He poked at the horse, a sorry-looking old thing with an expression stating that it wanted nothing more than to go to its stall and eat some fresh hay. "Get ye, Glump," the cabby said, and the horse trotted off.

Fiyero took the opportunity to look over Elphaba once more. She was still breathing, if raggedly. But so pale…that lovely, sensual emerald was now a color that might be used for baby clothes.

"Here," snapped the cabby, who seemed in no better spirits than his horse. "It'll be twenty."

It was a grossly inflated price, designed for bargaining, but Fiyero didn't have time to waste. He pulled out the first note he could find—it was a fifty that could end this workday early for Cabby and Glump—and handed it to the cab driver. "Keep the change thank you merry Lurlinemas," he called over his shoulder as he moved as fast as he could toward the Cloister of Saint Glinda. There were many stairs, all the better to inconvenience women in long habits, but Fiyero dashed up them in record time and pounded on the door.

A serene silence ensued. Just as he was about to bang again, he heard footsteps moving door-ward and stepped back just in time. "A merry Lurlinemas to you, sir, and—oh!" The maunt stepped back in horror, making a holy sign.

Fiyero couldn't believe this. "I would have thought that a woman of your standing would do better than to be frightened of odd-colored skin," he snapped at her. A maunt was due more respect, he knew, but he didn't have the patience. "Meanwhile, as we speak, she could well be dying. She told me to bring her here and use the name of Phantom. Does that mean anything to you?"

"I don't know," she said. "But of course, bring her in. I'll get somebody to help you. I'm afraid we don't have much in the way of comfortable furniture, though."

Fiyero sank to the floor and wiped the blood away from the corner of Elphaba's mouth. The last time they'd sat like this had been on a freezing winter's night when it was too cold even to sleep. They'd pulled the blankets in front of the stove and huddled against each other for warmth; he leaning against the wall of the stove and Elphaba curled in his lap like a cat. She had chattered something about clothes making it worse and so they were both naked except for the winter coats that they were using as a sort of tent. Malky wandered over to sit on Fiyero's feet like a furry hot water bottle. "I have central heating," he'd slurred through lips that he was sure must be filled with ice. "We can go there."

Elphaba had shaken her head. "Too dangerous for me. And I need you to stay here. I'm warm. I want it to stay that way."

She was cold, Fiyero realized, not dead, but cold. He took his coat off and laid it over her as a second blanket, just as a trio of maunts swept into the room. One, a tall, portly woman, stooped to inspect the patient. "What happened?" she asked Fiyero. Her voice was brisk, but out of urgency.

"She was attacked," he said. "The Gale Force."

The women sucked in their breaths. "And they're our protectors!" one whispered.

"No," said the middle maunt, a Munchkin. "She's one of Phantom's."

"Oh."

"She'll live. I think," the tall maunt pronounced, and Fiyero finally let out his breath. "But we have to get her upstairs and to a bed. Would you mind—thank you. Up this way." He followed her up the winding stair and through long twisting corridors to a large, reasonably well-lit room with rows of beds. "On the first empty one, now."

The maunt clucked her tongue. "Interesting, the green. I hope I can get to the bottom of that. You, sir, you're not needed here any more. I thank you."

"I want to stay," he said. "And she might be afraid when she wakes up; it'll be good for her to have a friend she recognizes."

"Stay, then," the tall maunt said. "But you can't be in here to disturb us. Sister Whatever-Your-Name-Is, take him to one of the lodging rooms for travellers and I'll get back to him when I'm done."

The other one nodded.

"And she's allergic to water, so you know."

"Allergic?"

Fiyero nodded. "She uses oil instead."

The maunt shrugged. "Well, we'll do that. Now go."

Fiyero darted forward and pressed a quick kiss to Elphaba's bruising forehead. "_Evuka b'an, tkaim ani."_ Stay with me, my love.

The maunts looked sideways at him; he shrugged and followed his escort out of the room.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: **_**Wicked**_** and all its accompanying everythings are the creation and property of Gregory Maguire.

* * *

**

If he hadn't appreciated her enough before, he definitely did now.

The maunts told him it was a miracle she was in as good condition as she was. She'd lost a dangerously large amount of blood, there were some very nasty bone breaks, and they suspected concussion. No internal injuries, though, thank the Unnamed God. At least, they thought so, but time would tell. In the meantime, pray.

Fiyero had never been the spiritual type—he wasn't an atheist, or in some deep quandary; he was just apathetic as far as deities went. But he prayed now and it seemed to work, for (aside from making him feel a tiny bit more optimistic) when time did tell, it told well and within a few weeks Elphaba was sitting up in bed, talking to Fiyero quite easily. With her cuts sewn and bandaged and her bones set, she seemed to him like a living advertisement for gauze. She snorted when he told her this. "It isn't funny when you're the one wearing it. It's itchy."

"But you're alive," he said for the thousandth time. Broken and with some months of recovery ahead of her, but alive and functioning. "You're still here."

"And so are you." Her expression turned serious. "Fiyero, when are you going home? You can't stay here forever. Your children need you. Your clan needs you, your wife needs you."

"And you don't?"

"Not as much. How long were you planning on staying?"

He hemmed a bit, hawed a bit, and finally said, "When you were ready to come home with me."

"_What_?"

"Would you marry me? Polygamy isn't unaccepted in the Vinkus. Or you could come just as a friend needing a place to stay. You haven't any other place, Elphie, and I'd miss you so much."

It took several moments for her to find her voice. When she did, she gave him the sternest look he'd ever seen. "Fiyero, you're an absolute _fool_ for ever considering either of those options. The first in particular; no way in hell am I going back there to compete with your wife and screw up your marriage even more. And I will not stay in your home masquerading as a friend; it just won't work. I'm sorry, love, truly I want to stay with you, but I can't."

He nodded. "I thought you might say that."

"Then why even bother trying?"

"I wouldn't know until I did."

"Commendable, I suppose. So, when are you leaving?"

He shouldn't have been as startled as he was. "When I find a way. I don't—"

"There's a caravan leaving three days from now."

Startle startle. "How did you find that out from here?"

She sighed. "I know every trip leaving for the next and last three months. I'm going to miss you, but others miss you more. And I'm sure you miss them."

He touched the drawing of Nor that went everywhere with him. "I do. But my children barely come near me, to be honest."

Elphaba sat up straighter. "And that's why you have to go back!" she told him. "It isn't too late; they just need you to be a father to them. Bring them presents, but don't just be a god of gifts. You could be such a good father if you tried, and I want you to."

She'd stung him. "I _do_ try. Always have." He wasn't to blame, after all, for being thrown into fatherhood so long before he felt ready? He'd done everything he could to bumble gently for their sake; until he'd re-met Elphaba they'd been all that kept him from sinking dangerously into tedium and gradual depression. "I love them."

"More than you love me, I hope."

"Now, Elphie, that's a completely different—"

"Fiyero, let me put it this way: _If you do not return soon your wife will never let you forget it and your children will undoubtedly be scarred even more than they now are and will be turned against you forever. _Do you want that?"

Fiyero wished he'd never been married, never been made chieftain over a flock of people that couldn't care less, never been anything but a gawky, geeky college boy. His head dropped into his hands; they both knew the answer to that question. The very tapeworms in the patients' stomachs knew the answer to that question. "I'm going to miss you so much."

"You come back every year," she said practically. "Sarima can't stop you."

"That's right." The world turned a little brighter.

""But I'm warning you, Fiyero, our relationship will be over. I still love you, no mistake about that. We can love each other; we just can't express it. These last months have been amazing, Fiyero, and from the bottom of my heart I thank you for them. But they're over. And I really think it would be best if you left after this conversation and didn't come back." Her composure dropped for a moment and he saw in her eyes the loneliness she'd always had, the loneliness he'd driven away and would now be returning her to. "I love you."

She was so sensible it hurt. "But I can say goodbye," he said thickly, and crushed her in his arms, regardless of injuries. If this were anyplace but a unionist mauntery, overseen by holy women who might at any moment come in, he would surely have loved Elphaba then and there like it was the first and only time. But there was one right now, poking along the beds in her habit, and so the kiss had to be quiet. "I love you," he said, and turned and ran.

* * *

He went back to his club and got more information on the caravan. The next day he contacted the leader, who was a bit disgruntled at such a hasty addition to the party but consented. Fiyero bought some last-minute presents and tied up the few loose ends that had to be. He packed his trunk and went to bed early for lack of anything better to do.

He dreamed of Elphaba and Elphaba and Elphaba.

The caravan pulled out on schedule the next morning, and Fiyero held his feelings in check. People would have questioned why a man would be crying on his way _home_. But it glowed and hurt whenever he thought of Elphaba, and that was almost all the time. The assemblage consisted of the caravan leader, one Cretory Mictur; a woman who constantly told them of the son she was going to visit that had married a girl of "some savage Winkie tribe"—always following was a nervous glance and apologetic shrug at Fiyero—; a clutch of indistinguishable merchants, a pilgrim who wrapped himself in a robe and refused to speak to anybody; a historian-geographer team attempting to write a Complete History and Atlas of Oz; a pale, scrawny young man with a set of pipes that he abused until someone inevitable shrieked at him to shut up and Cretory waved the whip threateningly; a mail-order bride with a harelip that probably had not been mentioned in the exchange.

And Fiyero, who spoke when spoken to but otherwise kept to himself. He watched the scenery dispassionately, trying to pull himself out of the doldrums. He couldn't be like this when he got home—Sarima would become angry and the children withdrawn and the whole household would be depressed, which was the last thing he needed while he attempted to patch up his life.

Fiyero reflected on his life since marriage.

With no ceremony, Sarima had moved into Kiamo Ko only a few days after his return from Shiz. They'd made some hours of awkward conversation, and then, when night fell, they'd done what was expected and consummated the marriage. Neither had much knowledge of such matters, and it had all been a matter of mechanics, after which they'd immediately rolled over and tried to go to sleep. They'd both been horribly embarrassed the next morning; it was some time before they could even look each other in the eye and, needless to say, theirs was a celibate marriage for a time.

And then, a few weeks later, Sarima had plucked up the nerve to tell him that she was pregnant—apparently once _was_ enough—, a matter which resulted in another spate of embarrassment. But awkward as they were around each other, the baby gave them something to talk about, and they'd gotten to know each other somewhat over the ensuing months. They'd confessed their nervousness—make that utter terror; he was twenty and she seventeen—to each other and tried to prepare themselves. When he was allowed to go into the room after the baby was born, he'd nervously approached Sarima and their new child, painfully aware that a year ago at this time he'd been studying for his exams and wishing he could pull an Elphaba and escape (thus leading him on a mental tangent which delayed his studying for at least ten minutes). He was not ready for this. But when Fiyero saw the baby for the first time he'd seen not an heir, or another infant boy like thousands of others—he'd seen his son, and right up until then Fiyero hadn't thought he could feel the way he did at that moment. He'd glanced up at Sarima, who looked exhausted but just as happy. She'd smiled at him, and at that moment they finally had something in common.

Little Irji was to thank for their marriage being as normal as it was: He'd been something for his parents to bond over and had given them cause to want more children. And as it seemed the main obstacle in their relationship was the embarrassment of each other, and they finally managed to overcome it (they couldn't continue to be humiliated when they slept with each other as often as they did), the marriage was still rocky at times (too many), but Sarima and Fiyero even managed to grow to love each other. Or what they thought was love, anyway.

But for all he'd done, for all that he was (and Fiyero didn't even try to deny it) his father's favorite—Fiyero had always defended the underdog, and Irji was very underdog—Irji was the most distant of Fiyero's children. Fiyero couldn't blame the boy; his father was usually away or occupied with his other duties as prince, and when home a brooding presence tending toward squabbles with Sarima, one of the only stable points in Irji's life. Also, Fiyero found himself giving more of his attention to the younger children—he felt—irrational as he knew it was—that they needed him more. And as the oldest child Irji had a tendency to get moved to the sidelines. Irjas, his full name, meant "eagle", but sometimes Irji seemed more like a mouse.

He was still a little boy, Fiyero reminded himself, only five years old, and he needed his father's attention just as much as his siblings.

And Sarima's sisters, of course: From the day they'd moved in those girls had been giggling about their sister's husband and it was clear they wanted almost nothing more than for him to knock on one of their bedroom doors. He'd brought them a gift from the Emerald City once—a rather dirty novel that he'd thought would suit their taste. It had, and the kiss he'd received from Three had ensured that that gift had been the only one they would receive for a long while. They were handsome girls, no denying that, but Fiyero simply did not want them. But they paled now in comparison to Sarima.

He didn't know how he was going to respond to her. He genuinely liked her; for all her sulks she could be a good friend and helper and companion when he needed one, and she was his children's mother. He had missed her, and he looked forward to seeing her again, but Sarima was still expecting the Fiyero that had left—she'd be wanting a husband, not a friend.

He'd bought her more jewelry, but he didn't think it would help.

* * *

It was a relatively small group, and Cretory knew what he was doing, so that within two weeks Fiyero found himself within sight of home. The group, now down to a couple of adventurers and Fiyero, made camp at the base of the mountain and as he drifted to sleep that night Fiyero watched the winking lights in the windows of Kiamo Ko. Every so often he could make out a shadowy figure. Tomorrow those shadows would be real people, and Elphaba would be the one to be a shadow in his mind.

He couldn't wait and he could wait forever.

From the dining room window one could see clear to Kumbricia's Pass; when he was a child Fiyero had often watched, fascinated, as hikers and travelers made the trek through the woods and into Arjiki lands. No doubt that out of almost ten people in Kiamo Ko right now at least one person had noticed the caravan wending its way upwards.

They were probably waiting for him right now.

He steeled himself, turned the key and pushed open the door.


	3. Chapter 3

**Kristin Chenoweth is not alone. She has a clone, and that clone's name is Maread Nesbitt. Go to YouTube and search "Granuaile's Dance". **

**Disclaimer: **_**Wicked**_** and all its accompanying everythings are the creation and property of Gregory Maguire.

* * *

**Sarima was already fluttering down the stairs as he dragged his trunk in. "Irji saw the carriage out the window and told me you were coming," she said. "I couldn't believe it…it's been so long." She'd made herself beautiful for him, Fiyero saw. The white dress that always flattered her (more so since she'd lost her excess weight during his absence), the torque that must have arrived early, the hair....

He kissed her cheek. "I've missed you."

"So have I. I was starting to worry." She laughed. "Sometimes I wondered if you'd ever get those business concerns of yours sorted out."

"Ah, that's over with." Fiyero was impressed at how well he made it sound like nothing. "Where are the kids?"

Sarima glanced at the doorway. "They're a bit shy," she muttered. Then, louder, "I have _no_ idea where they are."

Fiyero pushed away the pang of guilt and pasted on a smile. "Such a pity," he said in the same tone. "_Because I've got presents_."

There was a scuffling in the hall and then Manek trotted up to him and looked up expectantly. "Presents?"

"Do I even get a hello?"

"Hi. Can I have my present?"

He should have reprimanded the boy, but never having been quite sure where the lines were to be drawn on discipline and not wanting to do any damage to their lives, Fiyero's parenting style had always been somewhat lax. Besides, he was too happy to see Manek again, and Nor and Irji who'd made their ways to him once Manek had taken the initiative. So he hugged and kissed them (stiff little plaster figures they were with him) and started rooting through his trunk for their presents. He found Sarima's necklace first and thanked fate; perhaps the pretty piece would smooth things over a bit when he told her about Elphaba.

You don't have to tell her, something whispered to him as he returned Sarima's hug. Go on, become closer as husband and wife, have a normal family, don't ruin her life with this.

But I can't, he protested. It's too big; besides, I'm just not the sort that can lie face-to-face. I have to.

"Have to what?" Sarima pulled away from him.

Oops. "Nothing," he said. "That looks nice on you."

She laughed and fingered the silver chain and the gold torque in turn. "Which one?"

"They both do, but not all at once; take off the gold necklace."

She tucked it below her collar instead. "It's called a torque, Fiyero."

"Whatever. Neck jewelry."

She snorted.

Fiyero returned his attention to winning over his children with toys and candies. Chocolates from the Emerald City were a rare treat, and he felt he'd scored quite a few points. "They shouldn't be having all that sugar at once," Sarima said halfheartedly, helping herself to one of the truffles. "They'll be impossible within a half-hour."

"So let them," Fiyero said, bending down to wipe Nor's now rather chocolatey face with his sleeve. "Ah, sweetie, it helps to take some of the paper off."

Nor giggled and tried to remove the wrapper, which by now was soggy and created an even worse mess. Fiyero gave up and straightened, wiping the sleeve on his pants. "Sorry," he told Sarima. "I'll do some of the washing, I swear."

She laughed. "I suppose it's alright. They deserve treats now and then, especially when their father comes back from such a long trip. Four will go crazy too; she loves the fruit slices."

"Fruit slices?"

Fiyero groaned inwardly as the sisters, presently properly primped, tiptoed into the foyer. "I brought back candy," he said.

Three glanced over at the children. "I notice."

Two smiled sweetly, or tried to. "Fiyero, dear, it really is so good to have you back. You cannot _imagine_ how dull it's been without you."

"Has it really? I never got the impression that I was so exciting."

The sisters tittered. "Oh," said Three, the boldest of the set. "Yes you are."

Six's teeth were glued together by a particularly stubborn bit of caramel fudge, but she nodded enthusiastically.

Fiyero wished they could find their own husbands. "Well, it is good to be home. No place like it,"

"How true," the sisters, who had never been more than a mile from Kiamo Ko since they'd moved in, agreed in unison.

* * *

By the time Fiyero had repacked what had been thrown out, cleaned the children, put the candy out of their reach, and deposited his trunk in the bedroom, it was already time for lunch. Six, doomed by age to be ever the servant, brought the food out.

Fiyero ate; he answered questions; he acted normal. But his conscience kept nagging at him, the damn thing. He had to tell her. After lunch, then.

So when the dishes had been cleared and they were wlaking away from the table, Fiyero took his wife's hand and stopped her. "Sarima," he said. "We have to talk."

The smile she'd been sporting since he came home melted away. "Talk? About what?"

"Not here." He gestured to her sisters, and to the children. "Alone. The upstairs parlor?"

"Yes, but Fiyero, what is it?" She had to jog a bit to keep up with him. "Is everything alright? Did something happen to you?"

"We'll talk about it in private."

And he said no more until they were alone with the door firmly shut and locked. Then, when they were both sitting down, he said, "I wasn't entirely truthful with you." Just get it all out fast, that way it's easier. "I found—I mean, I—I—" Damn, how was he supposed to put this?

"You had an affair, didn't you?"

He turned and stared at her, shocked. "How did you know?"

She smiled, a bitter, sad little smile, and said, "The way you were dithering…how you've been acting. Those ambiguous letters. I didn't want to believe, but I did suspect. And all the talking about her here…well, it was obvious that you admired her greatly."

"What? I didn't think I'd talked of her so much." He'd mentioned Elphaba only a few times in passing.

"It was with Glinda, wasn't it?"

The idea was so illogical he almost laughed. _Glinda_? "No…it was Elphaba. I ran into her and followed her home. We talked, I came back a few times. And then—"

"I don't want the details, Fiyero. I don't want to believe any of it."

"You offered me your sisters often enough."

"But that's different! They're my_ sisters! _It's accepted. This was with some random school chum? How? Or why?"

The pain of missing Elphaba was mixing with the pain of hurting Sarima, and he wished he could just go to sleep. "Sarima, have you been entirely happy in our marriage?"

"No," she confessed finally. "But don't deny it and say that you've been. We were both of us forced into it, but I thought we had that over with. You told me you loved me."

"And I did—I do—I don't know how to explain it. I mean, I love you, but I don't think in the way I should love my wife. I didn't really know any better, because this was all I'd ever known. But then I realized what love is with Elphaba."

Sarima leaned her head back against the couch and closed her eyes. She and Fiyero fought over the tiniest matters, far more often than the both of them would have liked, but now, when she had the most reason to berate him, she couldn't find it in herself.

Fiyero put a hand on her shoulder. She shrugged it off, so he tried another tack. "Sarima, am I the only one you ever loved, or thought you loved?"

"I still do," she snapped.

"But another? Before you were made to live an arranged marriage with a man you'd seen exactly once in your life?"

A face popped into her mind and she quickly banished it. "Yes, I did, as a matter of fact. But you don't see me tracking him down and sleeping with him for months while you worried about me and while our children became even more confused. It was almost six months—almost half a year." Something else occurred to her. "Why are you even bothering to confess this all to me?"

"It had to be," he said. "I couldn't walk around carrying this secret. I had to tell you."

"Oh, so it was your conscience, then?" She sat up straight. "So you could frolic around with your green mistress with not a thought to your family and not feel a thing but your own lust—fine, _love_, as you call it—but your precious conscience is still so strong that, while permitting adultery, it won't let you keep it to yourself. You may feel unburdened but how do you think I feel?"

"I never meant for you to feel this way—"

"Great job—"

"But I had to tell you. And I never meant for it to happen with Elphaba and I; I'm still not even sure exactly how we came to be lovers, it just—happened."

"Just happened? You mean you suddenly found yourself in bed with her?"

"Actually, that _is_ kind of how it happened. It's continuing the relationship that I know was wrong, and I do take full responsibility for that."

"At least you own up." She didn't say it sarcastically, but in a tone that more conveyed genuine relief. "Now what do you propose we do about this?"

Fiyero had been waiting for this opening. "Talk. Sarima, we really have to talk. In our entire marriage we've never really communicated, and this whole thing could have been avoided if we'd known each other better. So right now I want to get around to that. Say what has to be said, and so on. The typical 'we need to talk', as in, 'I have bad news' we've already done. Now it's time for the real thing."

Sarima nodded.

And talk they did, for the next few hours. They went through every grievance from now till the beginning; their histories; what each wanted; the children; how to fix up their life. And there was, yes, some arguing, but arguing that was really needed—a crease can't be ironed smooth without searing heat. For the first time they were really speaking as husband and wife, and with six years to fill in they were still talking when Six knocked on the door to tell them that dinner was ages ago. "You've been forever," she said through the keyhole. "Four and Five have been giggling madly."

Sarima glanced out the window. "Goodness, it's late!" she said, rising. She glanced at the clock. "And now the children have to be going to bed. I'm sorry, Fiyero, this has been so helpful, but we'll go on later."

"I want to help you anyways," he said, making a split-second decision.

She turned, door half-open, and looked at him, puzzled. "What?"

"I want to help you. Put them to bed, that is."

She looked at him in surprise. "You've never done that before."

"I've never done a lot of things before. I'm trying to fix that before it's too late. They're growing up. I don't want to lose them."

"Do you even know what to do?"

"Make sure they don't put their pajamas on backwards or swallow their toothbrushes; tuck them in; goodnight?"

"Basically. Irji and Manek know what they're doing; only Nor really needs any help and I think she'll want me for now." She hesitated. "The boys might want me…"

"So I'll call you if they do." He waited anxiously for her reply.

"I don't see any problem," she said. "You _are _their father, after all. Irji and Manek are probably in bed already; just go in and tend to them. I'll take care of Nor."

"Two was giving Nor her bath, last I know," Six put in. "Unsure if you'd be done reconnecting within the next few days."

Sarima glared at her sister and went upstairs, Fiyero following nervously.

Manek, as Sarima had said, was already in bed and sleeping. Irji, though, was wide awake and waiting. "Where's Mama?" was the first thing he said when Fiyero came in, and Fiyero felt rebuffed.

"She's putting Nor to sleep," he said.

"So can you stay with me?"

Fiyero pulled up a chair and sat down. "That's what I'm here for."

Irji's small face was thoughtful. After a while he said, "How long are you staying with us for?"

Fiyero desperately hoped he'd misunderstood and forced a small laugh. "What do you mean, 'how long'? I live here."

"Well, you're not here a lot."

Damn. "I have to go now and then because I'm the prince," he began. "I have no choice on that, although I'd rather stay here."

"But you left in the summer and didn't come back until now." It was clearly taking everything Irji had to make conversation with his father; the stuffed lion looked like it would burst if Irji held it any tighter.

Fiyero sighed. "That's something else, a mistake, and I'm sorry about it. It won't happen again. And I'm trying to spend more time here with you."

It took over a minute for Irji to ask his next question. "Do you like me?"

How had it ever come to this, Fiyero wondered, mentally flagellating himself. "I love you. I may not be here a lot, but that doesn't mean I love you and Manek and Nor any less."

"Do you and Mama like each other? You fight a lot." This with the general embarrassing candor of small children.

"We're working through that, Irji. We're working on it."

"And her sisters? Do you like them? I don't."

Fiyero couldn't hold back a smile. "And just between you and me, Irji, I can't stand them either."

Irji managed a small smile back at him.

"But let's keep that a secret, alright?" He held his hand up and Irji touched it with his palm.

"Alright." Irji snuggled deeper under the coverlet. "Can you tell me a story?"

Fiyero started to say that he didn't really know any stories, but then he remembered a few vignettes he'd heard from Elphaba. Nonfiction all of them, but with a bit of tweaking he had a story.

Irji listened attentively, giving no real indication of his opinion.

"Did you like it?" Fiyero asked him when the story was finished.

Irji nodded and snuggled deeper under the covers. "Thank you."

"It was my pleasure. Do you want me to keep the candle lit?"

"Could you?"

"I don't see why not."

"Mama doesn't like to," Irji confessed.

Fiyero hoped he hadn't ruined anything. "Oh. Well, then. I she's right."

"Truer words never spoken," Sarima commented wryly from the doorway. "Fiyero, I can take it from here."

"Sure," he said, getting up. "Goodnight, Irji."

"'Night."

Sarima nodded approvingly as Fiyero passed by her, and as he smiled back he felt he might have conquered a world.

* * *

"Fiyero?" came the whisper in the night.

Fiyero rolled over. "What?"

"I was thinking," Sarima began, sounding tentative and a bit embarassed. "I think it might be better for us—I mean, it could be good, you know, if we were…married. You know, _be_ married."

"No," Fiyero responded as soon as he'd worked out what she was saying. "No, Sarima, that's not fair. I can't do that to you. Tell you I deserted you and the children for months while I had an affair, and then just have sex with you as though nothing's happened?"

"Please?" she whispered. "I think it'll help us."

"How?"

"Be together again, like we want."

Fiyero could see what she meant, and he rather agreed too. The problem, though, was that Elphaba was still firmly in his thoughts. He couldn't bed his wife when he was thinking of his lover.

"Fiyero."

But he couldn't let a memory of Elphaba control his life from now on, and he reminded himself that he _was_ trying to build up his relationship with Sarima. "Sure," he said. "A good idea, in fact. I mean, for our marriage, not…ah, you know what I meant. Alright?"

But it wasn't.

More secret, he'd told Elphaba, but he supposed now that that was how lovemaking ought to feel. With no experience, he'd assumed that sex with Sarima was just like sex with any other woman. But Sarima was all wrong: She wasn't shaped like Elphaba was, a shape that fit Fiyero like a matching piece in a puzzle. She didn't move as quickly, and he felt too restrained. And whatever history Elphaba had, with it she'd acquired some very interesting, very pleasing tricks up her sleeve that he hadn't imagined possible, tricks that an innocent child bride who'd spent her life in a secluded castle would know nothing of. Elphaba was more _exciting_. Sarima was…he didn't know. A shoe on the wrong foot. It would get better, he supposed, although for now only thoughts of Elphaba kept him from being about as useful as a eunuch. But he played his part, and played it well enough that Sarima was placated.

He fell asleep after a short while, but Sarima stayed awake, going over what had happened.

It was illogical, she knew. She shouldn't forgive him so fast. Adultery was absolutely unacceptable, she'd been taught. No excuse. But her mother hadn't covered what to do if you honestly loved the man (in any sense, if what Fiyero had said was right). Fiyero was still Fiyero, sweet, considerate, a bit withdrawn sometimes, but he tried. And in all the senses of the word, he was a _man_.

In his sleep he curled his arm around her, and she smiled a bit. Maybe this would work out. He muttered something in his sleep and squirmed a bit closer to her. She let him.

But then he moved closer, and laid his leg over hers, and she began to feel uncomfortable. Married or not, dream or not, this was creeping her out, and she was about to wriggle out when Fiyero spoke again, more clearly this time: "No…no, my Fae. Not now…a little longer…"

_Fae_? In one move she threw herself away from him. "_Fiyero!"_

Fiyero jolted awake. He looked over at her in confusion, then took stock of himself and was very glad for the cover of darkness and a quilt. "Sarima…"

"Forget it. She's in your dreams, even?"

"I'm sorry—"

"Those must have been some nights."

A little hidden attic. Falling asleep still tangled together, waking up literally eye-to-eye and sometimes forgoing getting up to spend an hour or so more in each others' arms, sometimes making love again but more often talking or maybe just thinking and enjoying each other's company as the sun crawled overhead. It _had_ been like something out of a dream.

He missed her even more strongly then. She needed him, he knew it. And here he was miles away in a freezing castle listening to his wife. "If you don't want to hear about my relationship with Elphaba, as you have consistently told me, then perhaps you should not bring it up," he said quietly. "We're over anyway. Like it never happened. Call it a dream of mine if you like."

"Except that we can help our dreams."

"Sarima, it's over and done with. I do regret it—"

She _hmph_d. "Nothing we can really do about _that,_ is there?" She turned over, away from him, and when they finally slept they slept facing away from each other on opposite edges of the bed, as they'd done early in their marriage when each had wished that the other did not exist.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: **_**Wicked**_** and all its accompanying everythings are the creation and property of Gregory Maguire.

* * *

**Oddly, it was Sarima that ended up taking the first step. "I'm sorry," she began as they cleaned up from lunch that afternoon. "I suppose I had no right to be harsh with you; after all, you can't control what you dream."

Fiyero was surprised but pleased. "Thank you," he said, turning his face to the fish so he wouldn't have to look at her. "Again, I'm sorry we had to go through all of this…"

"What's done is done. At least we've gotten to know each other. Now so long as we're the only ones that know and it doesn't happen again, I think we're all right."

Fiyero didn't know what had changed within his wife, but he was glad it had, and on the spur of the moment he turned and kissed her. "Just so long as it stays that way."

* * *

He was falling in love with her, Fiyero realized after some time—honest-to-Oz falling in love with Sarima. It was like getting married all over again, except that this time he actually wanted to, and this time when he thought of his bride it was with a warm glow instead of a _why_ and a sinking stomach while he tried to make himself think otherwise. He became aware that he had a tendency toward following her around and trying to hard to stay on her good side.

Gods, he must have pissed Elphaba off.

But Sarima took it almost happily, not making any comments and doing her best to please. They still had more spats than would be preferable, but all in all things were still looking better. So Fiyero turned more of his attentions toward the kids.

His conversation with Irji that first night had brought to mind how badly he'd removed himself from his children's lives. He'd been little more than a man that ate at their table and slept in their mother's room and seemed to like them and give them presents when he came back from those long trips. Had a father been only an abstract concept? Slowly, slowly Fiyero started to win his children over. It could have been the gifts or the stories or simply that, for the first time, they were really getting some of their father's attention. Fiyero loved them and they reciprocated, and he began to suspect that they'd never disliked him; that perhaps they'd even yearned for their father to pay them some mind. He just hadn't seen it. Like he hadn't seen a lot of things.

For a start, he had no idea what he was doing as a prince. When his father had died, Fiyero's mother had been no help; she'd completely disintegrated following the death of her husband and nobody was surprised when she joined him a few months later. Fiyero had been all of twenty-one and had enough on his plate with his yet-to-become-accustomed-to family of a ten-month-old baby and a wife almost six months into a difficult pregnancy that was making her and therefore, by extension, everyone around her, extremely irritable. This was when they'd begun their fighting; as hard as he tried Fiyero just couldn't keep his mouth shut and he spent a great deal of time worrying himself sick over what this could be doing to her and to the baby. The last thing he'd needed at this point was _more_ responsibility, and largely nominal the Arjiki throne might be but it wasn't child's play.

Fiyero had received a bit of training from his father, and he had studied what he could for this in Shiz, but nevertheless a biology degree with a few political science classes didn't do much to augment what his father had already told him. Thankfully, his insecurity hadn't shown: There had been no qualms about accepting him as the crown prince once the last of his father's ashes had been scattered. The Arjikis were self-sufficient enough not to request his guidance every minute, and on the rare occasion that his leadership was called for, he did whatever he could and did it well enough, as he hadn't screwed up. Yet.

With his new determination to put his life together, Fiyero decided that the tribe couldn't exist on an until-I-screw-up basis and alternated between holing himself up with books (his study actually becoming thus instead of simply his what-if-ing room) and leaving Kiamo Ko to venture out and actually see what and who it was that he was supposed to be taking care of.

Always he took Nor with him, and often one or both of the boys—people would respond better to him (and he would present a better image) as a father taking a walk with his kids than as an intimidated prince trying to crawl out of his shell (the latter part was told to him by a friend, in public, in a loud, carrying way; typical Arjiki, but humiliating). Besides, in her over-protectiveness Sarima had barely let her offspring beyond the castle gates and they were going a bit pale and very stir-crazy. They needed some time to run around the hills; meet the plants and animals; make some friends.

Once, even homebody Sarima put herself into her wraps and came along. "You're making me feel guilty for spending my entire life in there," she reprimanded him jokingly as they sat on the bank of the pond and watched their children lurch around the ice with what had be at least a hundred other people. "I almost liked it better before."

"At least I come back at night." He meant this several ways; night was still a wonderful new time for them.

She smiled. "I love my new Fiyero." She winced and grabbed his hand as Manek stumbled. "But I don't like thinking of what could happen to them out here; that's why I like to keep them close."

He turned to face her. "Sarima, the world is bursting with dangers. You can't hide from things; somehow they'll come out for you to face them. Look: The kids are steady enough on their feet and nobody's going to want to take the risk of hurting the prince's son. If they stay in Kiamo Ko forever then they'll live with those dangers. Have you noticed the size of those icicles that hang from the eaves? They're weapons in and of themselves. There are fireplaces all over; pillows can be slept too deeply into—" he saw how frightened she was growing and he stopped, reminding himself that Sarima was still younger than he was, and that she was would probably always be much more naïve. "Just stay reasonable. I know you love them; so do I. but I let you play in the kitchen, and you know that I love you."

"I know, and I'm glad."

Fiyero was still in a bit of conflict over how, precisely, he could love two women so much, at the same time. He'd wondered this long before the practical application, and had once posed the question to a friend of his who had two wives.

"It's their differences, I suppose," the friend had replied. "You know them, their personalities. Ava's black to Salina's white, if they were on a color wheel, and since they have so little in common…they don't compare to each other, they complement each other…do you understand? You have children."

Fiyero knew what his friend was talking about. "I see."

"Why the sudden questioning, Fiyero? Is there somebody else in the background?"

At the time Fiyero had been able to answer a firm _no._ Now the answer was a yes, and he was starting to understand.

* * *

To the surprise of everybody (and the disgruntlement of Two), Three suddenly became engaged at Mid-Winter to a Shiz silk merchant (there were always people staying with them, and therefore always attempts at matchmaking, but this was the first to work out.). The merchant went home within weeks with his new fiancee, severely confusing the family, who'd fallen into the habit of having all the numbers.

Two, Four, Five, and Six became very earnest in their pursuits of marriage, and Fiyero was not left out of this from any angle. Sarima had told her sisters to stop, but they hadn't, much, except for Six, who seemed the most sensible, for them.

"With the past, I know it's ridiculous for me to be wishing this," Sarima confessed to him one night. "But sometimes I wish you'd be in the Emerald City, where I wouldn't have to deal with ladies flirting at you right in front of my face."

He'd laughed at that.

"No, really, it's terrible! I don't know how handsome men survive."

Fiyero grinned. "We live off of our wives' worries. Honestly, Sari, one comes not to notice anymore. Unless the specimen is one so attractive as yourself, at which the poor man really has no choice…."

"Who ever said I was talking about you?"

"And who ever said what I had no choice about when faced with someone looking as you do?" he countered.

"The look on your face."

* * *

**Free Jonathan Pollard! www(dot)freepollardnow(dot)com**


	5. Chapter 5

**Has anybody else noticed the irony in that Irish-descended Elphaba is green?**

**Disclaimer: **_**Wicked**_** and all its accompanying everythings are the creation and property of Gregory Maguire.

* * *

**

The birth of a daughter a full two months earlier than expected changed Fiyero's summer plans. He usually went to the Emerald City in midsummer, but he wasn't about to leave his wife and daughter at such a dangerous point in the proceedings.

"They often die when they're born this early," the midwife told Fiyero bluntly (Sarima was still unconscious). "But yours is healthy enough, and with the right care she has a chance of making it." Then she rattled off instructions, handed Fiyero his daughter, and gone back into the room to tend to Sarima.

Fiyero felt no more in control of his life than the mountain sheep Nor loved to play with. Yesterday this time he'd been with the tribe in the Thousand-Year Grasslands, planning how to stay in the Emerald City for the least amount of time; to leave earlier would be a massive inconvenience, but he wanted to be home and mildly settled in by the time Sarima had the baby. Elphaba had barely entered his mind. Then this morning a messenger had been sent from the castle, Fiyero had returned with record speed, and as things stood now he had a wife who could be anywhere on the spectrum of healthy or ill, a daughter he could hold in the palm of one hand, and a definite change of plans.

He settled gently to the floor, cradling against him the armful of blankets that the baby was wrapped in. She peered up at him with enormous brown eyes. Where had those come from, he wondered. Nobody else in his family had brown eyes. Sarima's side, perhaps. What irked him was that the eyes reminded him so much of Elphaba's; if it was possible that a baby could inherit the characteristics of somebody one of their parents had been thinking about when they were made, it had happened.

Name her fast, the midwife had told him. Forget about the usual week-long period; in these circumstances you want to slap a name on as soon as possible. Fiyero steered his mind away from the idea that his little girl could die so easily so soon and turned it toward names. Thinking that they still had plenty of time, he and Sarima hadn't even started tossing ideas back and forth. Luckily, however, it was Fiyero's turn to definitively decide on a name, so he'd been doing a bit of thinking already.

He took a little hand between two of his fingers, and it clutched into a fist that barely reached around his thumb, so soft he could hardly feel it.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs, and he looked up to see Six descending. He offered up a silent prayer of thanks; it was the most levelheaded of them. If it had been ditzy Four…

"Oh," whispered Six when she saw the bundle of blankets. She walked up to him and knelt. "Boy or girl?"

He couldn't help but smile. "Girl."

"She's _tiny_. Can I hold her?"

"I'd rather not."

"She's sweet." Six sighed, withdrawing her hands. "How's Sarima?"

"I don't know," said Fiyero. "It was a quick birth, what with the baby being so small, but more than that I don't know. She's out completely now and I don't know how much longer she'll be. You can go back up, I guess. Tell Irji and Manek and Nor they have a sister, and if they ask about their mother tell them the truth and say you don't know yet. Keep them distracted. You've done great so far."

"You're sure? Nothing else?"

"Actually, you can search for the baby things," he remembered. "Wherever they are."

Six nodded. "I'll do that." She stole another glance at the baby and hurried back upstairs.

"That was one of your aunts," Fiyero informed the baby. "Wait until you meet the other three." He made a face. "You'll want to wait," he whispered. "You'll meet them too soon." He glanced up at a thumping noise and was glad he'd whispered as Six backed down the stairs, dragging a piled cradle and trying not to jounce it too hard. "Wow. You didn't have to do this all at once. Thanks."

"Everything was piled in here already," she said, coming to a halt before him. "How are you ever going to find anything to fit her?"

"I don't know…I'd like her dressed, though. Is there any order to that stuff?"

There followed an adventure of sorts, digging through stacks of clothes and boxes of various paraphernalia to find what they could. Then came the challenge of getting it to stay. They got it eventually with a combination of knots, diaper pins, and general trial, error, and ingenuity.

"Decent, I think," said Six. They grinned at each other; a momentary truce.

The door opened. "Well, she'll be fine from here," the midwife—Erla, he thought her name was, although his mind hadn't been clear when she said it—told him.

"Really?"

"Really." As before, Erla issued a stream of incomprehensible orders before nodding him toward the door. "You go in. Your sister-in-law can take care of anything else."

Fiyero caught a brief glimpse of Six's startled face as he closed the door behind him.

Sarima was blinking confusedly in the dimness, looking more pale and drawn than she'd looked after Manek was born (that boy had been trouble since he was conceived…). "Fiyero?" she said fuzzily.

"It's me."

"When is it?"

He sat down beside her. "It's early afternoon. You were only out for a few hours."

"The baby?"

"A girl, alive, and doing beautifully so far. As I hope you do—in health, as you've already got the looks down pat."

"Don't say that, I know I must look like hell right now. Can I see the baby?"

"She's already named. Erla said that even though the baby will probably live, I shouldn't wait to name her; shouldn't even wait until you wake up. And it's my turn to pick a name anyway," he added as he set the baby next to Sarima on the bed. "Iliara. What do you think?"

Sarima broke into a grin. "What did you do to her clothes?"

"I tried to keep them on. It wasn't easy. See how big just this sleeve is?"

"I see." She moved her hand over the baby from top to bottom. "So little. What did you say you're calling her?"

"Iliara."

"Iliara…" Sarima considered it. "It's kind of big. How about Liri?"

He'd been planning that anyway. "Liri it is." It was their fourth child, and he should have been used to it, but Fiyero was still amused by how they could be grinning at each other in the middle of what had not long ago looked and sounded like a murder scene. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm alright, I suppose. I still can't believe it, though. I mean, this morning I was still supposed to be pregnant for another two months, and now here she is. She'll be alright, won't she, Fiyero? She has to be."

He took her hand. "I hope so. She should, I was told. She's not having any trouble, that's a good sign. And you? You're sure you're okay?"

"Okay," she assured him. "Although I could use a drink of water."

"Of course." He jumped up and went to fill a cup from the jug on the corner shelf. "Here. What should I tell the kids if they want to see you?"

Sarima finished draining the cup and leaned back against her pillows. "Tell them that I'd love to see them but that I'm very tired now. Later, perhaps. You should go see them now; they're probably going crazy. And driving my sisters the same."

He grinned. "That's true. You don't mind if I take Liri to show them?"

"Fine. Congratulations, by the way."

"The same to you." He kissed her. "Thank you. I'll not be long."

Her eyes were already closing. "Take all the time you want. I'll be sleeping."

"Sure."

Sarima had been right, Fiyero found when he opened the door to the sisters' parlor: Three stir-crazy small children made four very annoyed aunts trying to keep things in order. But they all abandoned their bickering when he came in and stood up, all asking everything.

He raised a hand. "I'll tell you all at once," he said. "The baby is a girl; she and Sarima are both doing fine; Sarima doesn't want anyone until she's had a chance to rest." He walked to a chair and sat down as seven people converged upon him.

"Is that the baby?" said Irji.

"Yes, but don't mob me. And I'm sorry, but you can't hold her right now. You can look, though."

They looked, and in all appeared rather unimpressed.

"What's her name?" Nor asked.

"She doesn't have a name yet, stupid," said Irji, who had experience in matters of older siblinghood. "She doesn't get a name for another week."

"Don't call her that, Irji," Fiyero told him sternly as Nor's lip wobbled. "And it happens that she _does_ have a name."

"You named her already?" Irji tried not to be hurt by his sudden loss of status. "Why?"

"I certainly did name her," said Fiyero, deciding not to say anything about death. "It was advised. Her name is Iliara."

"Ilara?"

"_Which_ is why we're calling her Liri."

"That's a pretty name," said Five. "Sarima chose it?"

"I did, but she chose the nickname. Nor, _don't_ put you fingers near her eyes like that." He gently pushed her hand away. "She's not like your dolls."

Nor nodded. "I know," she said. "She's not pretty."

"Nor!" Five scolded.

"She has a right, Five," Two spoke up. "As I recall, _you_ were no beauty when an infant."

"Nobody is except to their parents," explained Four. "And sometimes not even then. But people get prettier as they grow up. Trust me."

"You being an exception," muttered Two sourly.

* * *

And then things went to hell a few days later when Sarima started running a high fever that metamorphosed into something scary-looking that nobody could quite identify. A doctor was called in and diagnosed "some type of an infection" apparently started when Liri was born. No lasting harm, he said, but Sarima would feel like shit.

"Although 'shit' would be an understatement," she moaned to Fiyero, and looking at her he completely believed it. "I can barely get out of bed to take one."

Fiyero, therefore, ended up taking care of Sarima, the castle, the sisters, the tribe, and the children, including Liri, who took up as much time as five children in one. Getting from one hour to the next on about forty-five minutes of sleep and little food became his top priority, driving much else from his mind until Sarima brought his untimely presence to mind.

"You'll be going soon?" she said to him one evening. "You do usually."

"What?" He was incredulous. "You're sick; Liri's still so delicate. No way am I going now. Maybe later. For now I'm staying with you."

A light knock came on the door and Four poked her head in. "I brought the milk," she said.

Fiyero thanked her and took the proffered bottle. "As it is the situation is barely managed with all five adults. Also, no offense meant, but I don't really trust your sisters when it comes to taking care of all that needs to be."

Sarima allowed herself a smile. "True…"

"And do you feel like pulling yourself out of bed right now to run everything?"

"I'm feeling a little better, Fiyero, but not so much so."

"Which settles the matter, I think."

And over the next week Fiyero didn't see much chance of himself going any farther than the front yard.

But then Sarima started to recover and Liri, with two parents and four aunts to mind her every need, was doing well enough for Fiyero to change his mind and go to the Emerald City, better a month late than never.

He kissed Sarima, kissed the children, didn't kiss the sisters, and left, hoping and not hoping to see Elphaba when he arrived.


	6. Chapter 6

**Just to relieve any futile hopes, this nice update pace will _not_ continue forever. You see, I have a Lurlinemas chapter in here, and I want to get it posted by the end of this year's spate of winter holidays. Which means that I must finish the chapters leading up to it, which I am scrambling to do.**

**Disclaimer: **_**Wicked**_** and all its accompanying everythings are the creation and property of Gregory Maguire.

* * *

**

The trip from Kiamo Ko to the Emerald City was quick and uneventful. It didn't take Fiyero long to settle into his normal routine of meeting people for boring conferences over dinner or a Palace affair, and frittering away the days browsing the shops or sleeping (sleep especially—this was a commodity he very much appreciated now). And while he kept his vow to Sarima and did not seek out Elphaba, Fiyero made sure to keep an ear and an eye open for any information of her. He had to know that she was both alive and safe, that was all, but news was not forthcoming— he thought he saw a green face, once, far down a crowded street, but when he looked again he saw that he'd been wrong; the silhouette was too large.

The end of his stay approached and Fiyero resigned himself to never knowing anything of her again.

A few days before he was due to go home, Fiyero took himself to the artists' quarter of the Emerald City; there was always someone or someplace or something interesting there. He wandered the streets somewhat aimlessly, observing the general life and the tourists and wondering what in Oz it could possibly be that that man was painting. He noticed that more than several of the establishments carried unusual names, and his eye was caught by a particular sign: The Lolloping Book.

Fiyero held back a laugh as the mental image swiftly appeared. Of all the verbing-noun pub names….

So he went inside, of course.

It turned out to be a reasonable-looking place—that is, the seats were upright and the floor had no vomit. There was a platform set up along one wall where a troupe of elves was accompanying a singer. There was quite a mix of people, so Fiyero didn't feel entirely out of place in his clothes, which for appearance's sake were finer than most of the common citizens'.

He got himself a drink and sat down, not doing much thinking, just sitting and watching people around him go about their lives.

The singer's voice cracked as she hit a sour note. Fiyero winced, as did any other patrons sober enough to notice.

"Never happened with the old singer," muttered the man next to him. The man's voice was a little slurred, but he still seemed reasonably aware of his surroundings.

"Good?" Fiyero asked.

"Oh, yeah, she was great. Weird makeup, though."

Fiyero glanced at the girl onstage. To complement the colorful, heavy makeup she was already wearing, the singer displayed sparkles on her cheeks, small studs surrounding her eyes, and an antennae headband. "That one seems odd enough."

"Nah." The man burped. "Other one painted herself all green. Obviously hated everything about the Wizard and this city, though."

Fiyero's stomach clenched. He'd found her. Elphaba was a great singer, he remembered. It only made sense. "What was her name? Was it a stage name?"

The man shrugged. "Don't think so. Called herself some common-ish name. Don't remember. Sounded a bit like elephant."

"Elphaba?"

"Yeah, that's it. Miss her voice. She wasn't a beauty but she sure as hell could sing. Don't know why she left. Coupla months ago. Gotta see a man about a wizard."

As the informant wove toward the unreliable-looking bathroom, Fiyero got up. So Elphaba had for sure been alive (he knew) and well (he hoped) up until around two months ago, when she'd vanished.

She'd joined another resistance group, he told himself firmly as he made his way back to his hotel room. That business had taken her away from her singing job at the oddly-named pub. She had to be alright—right? He would have felt it if anything horrible had happened to her.

Fiyero had made a vow to Sarima and to himself that he would not resume his relationship with Elphaba. But he'd never promised not to simply check up on her. So she'd been alive a couple of months ago, what did that mean now?

* * *

When we want something enough, when we want it for good, the Unnamed God—or other deity, depending on your spiritual bent—will generally send it. So Fiyero wasn't too surprised when he stepped onto a trolley one evening and found himself seated back-to-back with Elphaba. He didn't think she'd want him to touch her, so he greeted her softly: "I missed you," he said.

She started. She hadn't been expecting him, that much was certain, but she knew his voice enough to identify him without turning her head. "So did I. Please don't bother me."

He expected to feel hurt, but wasn't: in a way he felt much the same. "I'm not here to bother you. I just wanted to know if you're alright."

"Peachy, if not in color. Can this be all?" She didn't elaborate, or ask about Fiyero.

"I told Sarima about you."

She twisted in her seat and stared at him furiously for the first time in almost a year. "Why the _fuck_ would you do that?"

A woman three seats down winced and covered the ears of the small boy sitting beside her.

"No, I mean, honestly, _why_? We were over, why would you go and tell your _wife_—"

"Elphaba, for somebody who wants privacy in this matter you're shouting—"

"I don't give a damn about privacy, I just don't see why this had to continue."

She was taking it almost worse than Sarima had. "She's my wife, I couldn't keep it a secret forever and just let it fester and grow like some dragon cubling—"

"Poetic. But pathetic."

"—and it would get out eventually. So I told her."

"How did she react?"

"Not as badly as I expected," he admitted. "Though that isn't saying much. She's come to terms now. It was actually the first time we'd ever really talked about our marriage, which may be why it's improved, however improbably, since then."

"Enough for her to let you come back here?"

"I told her also about how you and I had resolved not to…not to take up with each other again. She believed me. Besides, I have to come to the Emerald City as a matter of business. There's no way out of it."

"So you'll be leaving in the next few days, if my knowledge is correct." Elphaba shrugged. "At least we won't have to deal with seeing each other around the City. This is my stop." She picked up her bags and got up. "And stop following me."

"I can't not," he said. "This is where _I'm_ supposed to get off."

"Damn St. Glinda. We always have to meet."

The number of people getting off at the St. Glinda's Square stop was large, and with the seating arrangement they found themselves standing too closely in the aisle. "I'll be staying for another month," Fiyero confessed to her. He didn't know why. "I came later than usual."

"Unpleasant circumstances prevent you?"

The doors opened and the trolley vomited out the passengers. "Thankfully, no," he said as the crowd trickled to pieces. "Another baby, actually." He grinned. "A girl. Iliara. We call her Liri. She arrived a couple of months early, and the circumstances _could_ have been unpleasant at the time, so I couldn't just up and leave. But she and Sarima are fine now, and anyway Sarima's got her sisters to help."

Elphaba looked shocked for a moment. "Congratulations."

"Thanks. What do you do now? I heard you used to sing."

"It was a living."

"Why did you stop?"

She shrugged. "Circumstances got in the way. Still are. I'll see if I can get the job back later."

She was standing with her back to him, and conversation was getting annoying. "Are you ever going to walk? Or do you live in the middle of the sidewalk?"

She turned to face him. "I'm standing here because the last time you found me you followed me and my life, which had been perfectly stable up until then, went upside down. I've missed you so much this past year and I don't want that to happen again, which will if you follow me and therefore come into my life again, so I'm waiting for you to go back to wherever you're staying. And I'm not coming with you."

"Then can we sit down and talk? I want to know more."

"You've heard enough."

Suddenly he thought of a reason for her evasiveness. "Did you find anyone else while I was gone?"

She snorted. "Don't be ridiculous."

His heart rose, nevertheless. "Tell me something, then," he pressed. "Are you safe, at least? Are there others, or are you all alone?"

"I live with another woman in a similar situation," she said. "Don't be so shocked; you're not the only one that tolerates me. And as for where we live, you won't know that. We both work—or she does, now that I've stopped--"

"Were you sacked?"

"I had to quit. We take care of ourselves and you're not needed." She hefted her bag more securely onto her shoulder. "Goodnight, Fiyero."

He sighed. "Goodbye, then."

"And you won't harass me again?"

"That's all subjective, Fae." And he walked away before she could respond.

Elphaba watched him go, standing in her spot and waiting until he'd turned a corner far out of sight before going on her own way.

Fiyero, trying not to pant from having run in a circle so quickly, followed cautiously some yards behind.

It was easier to follow her this time. It was almost completely night by now, so there was less light to shine in his eyes and more dark to hide him. Elphaba's route was also less circuitous, and she was walking a bit more slowly.

She moved in the opposite direction of her old home, heading eastward. She took the backstreets and made some false turns to try to evade any trackers. Elphaba then went around a corner and Fiyero, coming out a few seconds later, realized that they were in the very neighborhood in which he'd found The Lolloping Book. She turned into a tiny doorway to the right of a boarded-up shop. The narrow staircase led to two doors, Fiyero figured that it was the little apartment over the shop (although apparently there were two here).

Elphaba poked around in her pocket and swore softly—she'd forgotten (or perhaps lost) her key. "Bronia!" she called, pounding on the door. "It's me."

"Hold it!" somebody called back from inside. There was a crashing sound before the door was opened by Fiyero's exact mental image of a mischievous sprite: she was tall and slender with lively auburn hair, a smudge of something on her nose, and flashing eyes that were their own warning. She even wore a green dress. The only thing out of place was the infant wailing in her arms.

"Does he ever stop?" Elphaba muttered.

The woman shrugged and handed her the baby. "You try," she said. "You're his mother," and Fiyero forgot to keep his silence and choked, "_What_?"


	7. Chapter 7

**I wanted to give you a new story for Chanukah / Non-Denominational Winter Holiday, but I still have no title and there are about three sentences of the first chapter. And my new oneshot is too depressing. So my present will be that the chapter story now has a plot. **_**Unknown Title**_**: Coming Soon to Archives Near You.**

**Disclaimer: **_**Wicked**_** and all its accompanying everythings are the creation and property of Gregory Maguire.

* * *

**

Elphaba whirled. Her eyes flamed when she saw him. "What the _hell_—I told you not to follow me! Go away from here!"

Fiyero ignored her. So she'd had a baby. It all worked, of course: the timing, the reluctance to speak to him, the way she was moving (the baby looked so new; it had to have been born very recently). His eyes swept her: the waist of her dress hugged her middle more tightly than it should have; her breasts were swollen…he hadn't noticed much difference because Elphaba was usually so thin; he'd simply forgotten _how_ thin and hadn't seen anything off.

"Away!" she screamed. "Why do you always do this to me?"

Elphaba's roommate cocked her head at the little drama. "Shall I put him out?" she inquired. "I beg of you, if he's bothering you. It's been a long while since I had a fight."

"No. Thank you, Bronia, but no thank you. Why?" she repeated.

Fiyero gestured to the baby, who had finally quieted down. "Why?" He looked at her, and she looked back at him, for a long time. "What's his name?" he asked finally.

Elphaba directed her gaze to a point over his shoulder. "Liir."

A masculine form of Iliara, and a syllable off his daughter's nickname. No wonder she'd been so surprised. "How old?"

"Eight days."

"Eight _days_?" And she'd been trotting around the Emerald City—

"And if I hear 'rest' again I'm going to shoot somebody. I'm not capable of lying around in bed while people bring me chicken soup."

"And you didn't tell me about him?" He didn't really feel angry. More hurt. "You didn't bother to tell me that I—that _we_ have a son?"

Elphaba's roommate's—Bronia's— eyes darted to Fiyero. Elphaba glanced behind her for a moment. Then she beckoned to Fiyero. "Come," she said. "We'll talk this through and then you'll leave me alone. Please."

"We'll talk that through."

She sighed. "Come." He followed. The apartment was tiny; it seemed that the original storetop flat had been split. The front door opened onto a small main room with some cushions on the floor, a table, some shelves, and a little stove. There was a clutter and delicious smell that indicated something baking. They squeezed past the stove in the corner single file and Fiyero saw a space with a very small bathroom a little more than an arm's length in front of him; to his direct left were two doors snug against each other. Elphaba opened the closest one and led him into her room, which to Fiyero resembled a shoebox with a sagging iron frame bed and a few shelves on the wall. There was a blanket-lined basket on the floor and he recognized the oval glass hanging from a nail. He also noticed a gaping hole in the wall.

"Bronia was stupid," Elphaba explained. "Sit down."

"You need to more."

"There's room for us both and I won't until you do."

He sat on the bed, winced, and moved away from the bar. Elphaba sat next to him and started to unwrap Liir's blankets. "Bronia always wraps him up, and so tightly too," she said. "I tell her not to, that it's summer, and she still does. I wouldn't be surprised if he screams so much because he's too hot."

"Elphaba, why didn't you tell me about him?"

"We weren't talking for very long."

"I asked you what was going on in your life and you gave the impression of nothing. A baby—_our_ baby—is hardly nothing."

Elphaba put Liir in the basket and started rocking it with her foot. "I would have had to let you come here. I do as it is."

"Do you really want to break off all ties with me?"

She sighed. "Yero, be realistic. You have a wife, and children with her. You've got a tribe to lead. You have a fine life, and you have the right to live it. Putting a yearly lover into the picture doesn't work. It was best if I vanished completely and you went on with your life. I'd be just an old college friend that you had a fling with one summer, and that would be that. Now I'm an old college friend that you knocked up, and that's a harder relationship to break off. You'd want to know your son. I know you would."

She had a point there.

"And now that you know of him you won't be able to ignore me on subsequent trips. I wanted us over; that was one of the many reasons I didn't want to have him."

"But you did have him…"

"I realized I was pregnant a few weeks after you left. I didn't think I could take care of a baby, and I didn't want to go through a pregnancy, so I decided to abort it. But I was still underground from those underground, and there was nobody to perform it that would for free—I had no money, and I didn't want to take the risk of doing it on my own with a knitting needle or something. I stole some herbs from an apothecary, but they didn't work. Bronia found me and took me in and got me my job, which I left after a few months when it became too obvious that I was pregnant, but it was too late by then. So I sat around and brooded for a couple more months and had Liir.

"I was considering giving him up—"

"I'd—"

"No you would not. I thought I might leave him with Glinda, but I don't know if I'd trust her with a child, and the same goes for my family and I don't want to dump him at an orphanage somewhere. Bronia's already completely devoted, but when I asked if she'd be Liir's mother she said no, especially if I'm still living here."

"Do you love him?"

Elphaba shrugged. "I don't," she said frankly. "I don't really feel anything toward him right now except for a slight sense of obligation. But that might change in any direction."

Fiyero looked at Liir, who had fallen asleep with Elphaba's rocking. He couldn't imagine how her emotions might _not_ change toward the infant.

"But you know me, or at least you think you do. So tell me, Fiyero, do I seem cut out to be a mother to a child?"

"I wouldn't know," he said truthfully. "I don't remember that I've ever seen you with kids. But there was Nessarose, wasn't there, and your little brother?"

"Shell. I was fine with them, but I've never really liked children, particularly babies. You want somebody motherly, you ask Bronia. If I believed ion reincarnation I would swear she was a mother hen in another life."

"Bronia…she seems interesting."

Elphaba smiled for the first time. "Looking for somebody new?"

"About as much as you are. I'm happy with my life right now."

"Well, Bronia is a character. Mischievous; self-taught master baker forever practicing her craft; singer; has a passion for rambling on, and in the present tense when she really gets into it. But she does have her soft, motherly side, as is evidenced by how she brought me here. And the way she's glued herself to Liir, all the while insisting that I'm still his mother and should care for him."

"And do you?"

"I _can't_," she said, and just then Liir punctuated her statement by starting to whimper. "See, look at him now: He wants something. I don't know what though; I never do. Come on," she told Liir, nudging the basket with her foot. "Go back to sleep. Please." She rocked faster, and the cries tapered off.

"It's good that you came late," she said. "If you'd come in early summer you would have found me pregnant. And you'd have been on my tail constantly until I had the baby

Fiyero hadn't considered that angle, but yes, if he'd known Elphaba was pregnant he wouldn't have left her side for a moment. "He's just about three months younger than Liri. And the name—"

"Yes, we had the same inclination. Rather curious, no?" She smiled again. "And I would have called him Iliara if he'd been a girl. All the permutations of the name and I chose the same one you chose…"

"So it's lucky that he wasn't a girl, or that Liri wasn't a boy. Because she would have been a Liir. And I simply could not have dealt with that."

"I suppose."

"Were you…on your own? When he was born?"

"I wanted to, and was doing just fine, but then Bronia barged in and refused to leave until she'd taken care of everything she could think of."

"Was it hard?"

_She's curling her toes into the mattress, pulling on her hair to keep from crying out. As time goes on she's become glad (though she'd never tell her this) that Bronia's invaded her space and is scampering back and forth trying to tend to all of her at once. It is comforting, she admits, to have someone with her. And Bronia is more comfortable to lean against than the bed and wall when all her insides are pulling and tearing and burning and to no seeming avail, as hours of straining against Bronia's shoulder have made no difference; Elphaba's body seems uncommonly opposed to relinquishing the child, and the labor particularly vicious._

_Bronia's saying something about _soon_ but Elphaba points out, when she can, that the woman's been saying that for an hour._

"_No, it's true, I think I can even see the head now."_

"_I don't want a head, I don't want a tail, I don't even want a child, I just want it _out_!"_

_And so for hours._

"It wasn't too bad. Didn't hurt as much as I thought it would." She wasn't lying—it had been worse.

"That's good."

The conversation died for a few minutes, and then Liir broke the silence by starting to cry again.

"Oh, I don't know what it _is_ with him—I thought they're supposed to sleep most of the time, but all he does is yell. What's wrong now?" She leaned down to pick him up—"Bronia always makes it look so easy," she muttered, trying not to drop him—and rocked him a bit. He slumped into the crook of her arm, instinctively turning his face to her breast and scrabbling with tiny hands.

"I think he's answering you," Fiyero said.

"And you just sit there looking captivated." Elphaba sighed. "Look away."

"What?" He looked up, of course. "Why? It's not like I haven't seen you—"

"Fiyero, none of that exists anymore. Now hand me that blanket and look away for a moment."

He consented, grudgingly, and stared at the wall while she swore softly at a troublesome clasp on her dress. "Does he eat well?" Fiyero asked for no other reason than to break the silence.

"I suppose so. You can turn around now."

He did.

"Do _you_ know why he's like this?"

He shook his head. "Some babies just are, I guess?" Fiyero couldn't help but keep glancing at Liir, or at least the half that wasn't under a blanket. "What amazes me," he heard himself say at the very moment it occurred to amaze, "is that he's still here after that beating you went through."

"Yeah," she said, sourly. "Amazing."

"Elphaba—"

"Don't."

"You would have rather miscarried?" He didn't believe she could. "You can't possibly—"

She jumped up. "Don't you say _can't_, Fiyero Tigelaar, until you've been put into a situation you know nothing of! Don't say _can't_ when the _can't_ is that you _can't_ possibly imagine what this has been like; don't say _can't_ when you _can_ go home to your nice castle and your real, normal, functional family far away from here."

He'd never seen her look like this before, all furious and sad and so, so, oh so _vulnerable_ with that rock-hard shield and demeanor, all at the same time. He brushed away for the moment that she would have preferred a miscarriage and got up to comfort her. "Elphaba," he said. "Elphaba, honest, I'm sorry. I'll do whatever I can for you. What do you need? Is it money, food, space—you can always come to Kiamo Ko, anytime, I'm always here for you—"

She swung at him, a near miss. The blanket fell off but she didn't bother to replace it—so he'd see one of her breasts; nothing new. "You think that you can help me now? Get out of here, Fiyero. Get _out_!" She lunged at him, and he quickly scrambled from the door. She stalked after him as Bronia watched, wide-eyed, from next to the sink.

"You are to leave," she told him loudly, forcefully as she opened the door. She didn't care what people saw or thought. Just…just that he was _out_. She loved him but could not stand another hair of him at the moment. "Leave, and never return here."

Fiyero struggled for a moment over whether he should say something, but then decided that the best thing he could tell her was his silence. So he nodded to her, and smiled before turning away.

Elphaba slammed the door.

Bronia turned to her. "What—"

"Don't ask," Elphaba snapped.

Bronia didn't. "So that's Liir's father." she said. "He seems nice. Who is he?"

"Fiyero Tigelaar, prince of the Arjikis, if you want the full glory of it," Elphaba snapped.

"A prince?" Bronia started to laugh. "You, of all people, Elphaba, to be the lover of a prince!"

"_Ex-_lover."

"Why aren't you together anymore? I think you could've been so sweet." Bronia looked at the door through which Fiyero had gone. "And he's hot."

"He's also married," said Elphaba sternly. "And he's perfectly happy with his wife, so you can give up any thoughts of replacing me."

"But if he's so happy with his wife then why was he with _you_ such a relatively short time ago? It wasn't a one-night stand, that much I can tell from how he looks at you."

"Their relationship wasn't always so wonderful, and that's all I'm going to tell you. Now cut down on the voyeurism, Bronia, and I'm going to take a nap."

* * *

**And of course, a happy Chanukah to any Jews on this site and in _Wicked_, thus incorporating Idina, Adam, Sho (who sings the dreidel song on YouTube) and I cannot think of any more off the top of my head.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: **_**Wicked**_** and all its accompanying everythings are the creation and property of Gregory Maguire.

* * *

**

_A baby_. He supposed the possibility simply hadn't ever entered his head, but it wasn't so unlikely. Irji, after all, had been conceived out of one nervous venture, while during those four months in the Emerald City Fiyero couldn't count how many times he'd made love to Elphaba. And it showed, in that they now had their son.

There were massive gaps in what Elphaba had told him, but he knew she wouldn't let him back. And so he waited until he knew that she would be out and went to speak to Bronia.

She opened the door as soon as she saw him through the peephole. "Elphaba told me not to let you in," she said, confirming his suspicions. "So I'm just leaving the door open for a moment while I check on my lemon cake and I can't help it if you should happen to try the knob and walk in."

Fiyero grinned and followed her to the stove.

She gestured to the cushions. "Sit down," she offered. "Or I suppose you can sit on the table if you like; that's what Elphaba did when it got too difficult to lift herself from cushion height. The cake is done, would you like some?"

It felt awkward to sit on a cushion and be speaking to Bronia's groin, but still more awkward to be cross-legged on the table like an old tailor. Fiyero settled for a cushion. "Why don't you have any chairs, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Waste of money at the moment. Especially with Liir, now, nothing comes cheap. I bought what I could third or fourth-hand but some things just have to be new or couldn't be found." She sighed and dropped down in front of him. "Cake? It's a finger food."

Fiyero accepted the cake, which was even better than it had smelled. "Tell me more about Elphaba and when she came here."

Bronia looked less startled and more happy at the prospect of further talking. "I'm also old Resistance fodder," she said. "Not going into why I had to leave, but I did. I didn't have anything but my clothes when I had to go, so I made a killing selling myself and after a few months I managed to get enough money together to buy myself some nice clothes and so on instead of the thing I'd had before that would barely get any customers." She paused to take a sip of tea and Fiyero wasn't sure if it was to collect herself at old memories or because she'd simply accepted prostitution as a fact and now that she was out of it was thirsty. "A while more and I could put myself together enough to become a singer at Smdara and gradually be able to afford this place, and I lived happily ever after." She took another gulp of tea and refilled her cup. "The end."

Fiyero applauded. "But Bronia, Elphaba?"

"I was getting there. So, a few years later I'm walking back from the market and I see this woman huddled in the park, in the dark, freezing her ass off. Now, I see a bunch of people like this and I can't save them all but I see that she looks almost dead, and that she's pregnant, and that she seems to be green—not sick-green, _green_-green, and I'm curious if nothing else. So I pick her up and bring her home with me. I give her hot chocolate and she begins to revive." Bronia smiled reminiscently. "Oh, she was furious that I'd saved her. But Elphaba's not stupid; she knew that she was better off here. I coax her name out of her and give her a blanket and the spare room—I'd had another roommate, but she got herself a position as trophy wife and vacated—where she stays for the next three days, sleeping and waking up only when I bring her food. Poor girl. Do you know how she got in that state?"

Fiyero shook his head. "When I left her she was recovering in the mauntery. I thought they'd provide for her. But she probably told them that she could do fine herself."

Bronia agreed. "That's her. I suppose after all that time and care , when she isn't killed, she starts to trust me a bit and even takes me up on my offer to stay. She tells me she was hiding from the Resistance too, and about the mauntery, although she didn't mention you. She never did."

"Not even in relation to Liir?"

"I didn't know if she wanted to talk about her pregnancy, so I left it to her to bring up and she didn't for a long while. I tell her I'm a singer. 'I can sing,' she says, and we have a bit of a sing-off then and there and it is quite lovely. All said and done, my boyfriend at the time is working for the wife of the manager of the Lolloping Book and I get her her job, and she loves the name of the place. Very nice songs she makes up, too—she writes all her own songs." She looked at Fiyero squarely. "Were they about you?"

He hadn't even known that Elphaba sang for a living until three days ago. "I don't think I've ever heard any. She might have, though."

Bronia waved a hand. "Ah, you've heard her songs. They spread. She makes some extra money selling them on paper. I don't know where she learned to write notation, but she's got a real gift in music. _When all of the beauty turns to pain, when all of the madness falls like rain..._" She raised an eyebrow. "Heard that?"

He had, and he'd admired it then; even thought it applicable, and now he knew why. "You have a lovely voice," he blustered.

"So back to her. She decides to stay here permanently, and doesn't mind the conditions or that I may bring in boyfriends or girlfriends at odd hours and keep them in my room for a week, which I give her leave to do too. She just says that's unlikely. All she's obligated to is doing her best to pay for costs of living. One night we're sitting there eating salad for the thousandth time because all meat prices are shot to heaven when we're to hell, and she looks up and suddenly tells me, 'I'm pregnant, you know'. Which I did, because I'm not blind as a bat. 'Almost seven months,' she says. 'Your point being?' I say. And she shrugs and the matter is over with. The next evening she tells me that she quit her job because she can't keep it anymore and that she has absolutely no idea what to do from here. I told her that I was in the same sinking boat and that one of us had to figure it out soon and she laughed and the next day she gave me a list and we spent a day in the library. We had very little time to read what we had to know and buy what we needed but we managed. Half the people that saw us just assumed we were a couple.

"And then Liir was born. Now _there's_ something I'd rather not go through again!" Bronia's eyes glowed, which Fiyero already recognized as the prospect of what she considered to be a _really_ good story, and she fortified herself with another piece of cake. "So I get home late one night, right, because I met this wonderful man? Thank goodness I went to his house instead of the other way around. When I come home the lights are still on so I call Elphaba and she answers me, so I go in to check on her just in case and she's sitting in bed with a book and is very pissed at me so I turn the lights off and get some real sleep. Can't be more than a few hours before I just feel that something is _wrong_. I don't smell fire, so I jump up and put on a robe and open her door without bothering to knock which wouldn't have been of much help because when I come in she's curled against the wall biting her fist so hard I think she must have eaten a finger or two. She yells something unintelligible at me that I figure is get the hell out so I tell her bloody hell no way and start asking questions and it turns out she's been cannibalizing herself there for three hours and will keep it that way because she'd rather not have me.

"Bullshit. I give her knotted sheets to pull on, like I've read of, and nail them to the wall because I don't trust the bed. But either the sheets are wrong or the knots or she's too strong or the labor is too hard or maybe the wall is just too weak because it caves in. And foul air and cockroaches come out and you never heard such a loud and vehement cursing as I got." She paused for Fiyero to finish laughing. When he'd collected himself she went on, "So I give up on the sheets and decide to let nature take its course. I sit with her, check to make sure nothing's going terribly wrong that I can see. It's a lot of that, sitting while she pushes and snaps at me. Some very interesting words. Sometimes I think she can shove a train out of there but not that child; it just does not want to be born. Not fun for her nor I, I assure you."

Bronia didn't mention that toward the end of what she'd estimated to be about seventeen hours Elphaba had given up being snappish and had collapsed back in her arms, completely spent, moving only when the contractions forced her body. Bronia didn't mention that Elphaba had started to whisper instructions to be followed should she not survive, and she didn't mention that during those final few hours, with Elphaba pouring blood and utterly exhausted, Bronia had honestly believed that her friend was going to die.

"And then, finally, she tells me suddenly that it's coming and as though it hasn't been taking its precious time the thing just comes out. I don't know why a midwife is said to have delivered a child, all I did was sit; she did everything there was to be done. And I don't know if she even hears me tell her congratulations or that the baby is a boy because I'm looking in the pertinent areas at those moments and when I look up she's out—asleep or unconscious, who knows, but I've met rocks that were more responsive." Bronia didn't mention how she'd screamed and almost dropped the baby to run to Elphaba's side and make sure that she was still breathing. "I clean up as best I can, put the baby into bed with her, and crawl in myself because I don't have the strength to go to my own room. It's a miracle Liir wasn't smothered by any one of us. _He_ wakes us all up the next afternoon. From what I can remember Elphaba pulls down her collar, moves Liir to the right place, and leaves it up to him to find his way, which he does, which is lucky because she was off to sleep again and the same for me a moment later."

Bronia sipped her tea and pondered. "A dozen hours more good sleep and we're all closer to our old selves and new little self. Elphaba names the new little self. A few days later you show up. The end." Before Fiyero had a chance to respond, she asked, "So tell me: How did you and Elphaba meet?"

"How did we meet or when did we get into a romantic relationship?"

"How you met."

"In college. Romance came later, utterly by chance. She left early, and I never—what's that?" There was a mewing coming from someplace, like a cat, or—

"Liir! Oh. Oh, the poor sweetie, he was completely forgotten." Bronia jumped up and ran into Elphaba's room. "What do you want, little baby boy?" Fiyero could hear her murmuring. "Hungry, is that it? Not to worry, I'll give you something to eat. Shh, now."

"I suppose she'd mind if I took Liir now?" Fiyero asked Bronia as she came out of Elphaba's room with Liir in her arms.

"Not if you had to take over for me so I could put some milk to warm," she said, smiling.

"And she'd mind if I fed him?"

"Not if I had to go to the loo. Here." She handed Liir over to Fiyero, who had to juggle for a moment—he was used to tiny Liri, and even judging against full-term babies Liir was big.

"Thank you…thank you."

Bronia smiled and started rummaging in a cabinet. "It's my pleasure."

Fiyero watched his son exist. Liir's skin was a pale shade that he assumed would have been Elphaba's color if she hadn't been born green. He had a great deal of dark hair and big, remarkably alert eyes that tracked Fiyero wherever he turned his head.

Bronia tapped him on the head. "I give you this day his hourly or otherwise meal. You know how to handle a bottle?"

"I have a baby at home and my wife has been sick," Fiyero said, taking it. "I know what I'm doing."

"Just making sure." She sank down on the cushions and watched Liir gulp at the milk. "He's such a big eater. Definitely doesn't get it from his mother. Do you know if she has an eating disorder, by any chance? It drives me crazy, the way she eats and doesn't."

"I don't think so. She just keeps odd hours."

"You say you have a baby at home?"

He nodded. "Liri. Prime for confusion, now. She seems to have mastered that; she completely rearranged my summer by being born so early."

"How early?"

"About two months."

"And she's alive?" Bronia's eyebrows rose. "They can live when they're born that early?"

"Or Liri can, at least. Little, but not weak. Relatively, of course."

"I'd like to meet her. I love babies. Elphaba says you have other children?"

He launched into telling her about Irji and Manek and Nor, and had her full attention when Elphaba opened the door.

They couldn't have looked guiltier if they'd been found having raunchy sex on her bed.

There was really no defense: He was sitting on her floor with the baby in his arms and a bottle to the side and Bronia was not bound and gagged and tied to a chair in her bedroom.

Elphaba was struggling with something. Bronia cautiously got up and made a run to the bathroom, but Elphaba didn't say anything. She kept on watching Fiyero, freaking him out more with every consecutive second.

"How do you do it?" she burst out at last.

"How do I do what?"

"Love him? I gave birth to him over a week ago and I still can't summon up much emotion, and here you just walk in and pick him up—and probably know how to do it correctly, I assume—and I can see in your face that you're already crazy about him."

He canted his head. "Do you _want_ to love him?"

She sat down beside him and for a minute she didn't answer. "I'm not sure," she confessed. "I should, I know, but I'm not sure I want to. I didn't want him; I don't like children. But I don't want to loathe him either…. And I don't feel like a mother. I never have, and I doubt I ever will. Whatever instinct it is that women have, I wasn't born with it."

"By which you mean…"

Her head fell into her hands. "Everything. I screw up everything. For example…for example: You hear of fathers being afraid to drop the baby, but you don't hear of their mothers actually _doing_ it. Bronia doesn't tell me, but she's obviously scared for him. You'd think it was her baby and I wish it were."

He laid Liir carefully in her lap. She tensed; Liir felt her nervousness and started to whimper until Fiyero took him back.

"See? He can tell that I have no idea what to do with him."

"You need practice. We all do. I was a mess for the first year."

"But that's different!" she insisted. "You _wanted_ a child."

He laughed. "Wanted? I hadn't even thought about it; Sarima just came up to me one day and told me that she was pregnant."

"That's still different." Elphaba didn't know much about Fiyero's other children, but she could imagine them—little versions of Fiyero, with touches of some strange woman. She didn't like to think about it. "The point is, Liir and I just clash."

Fiyero took her hand. "Elphie, you're not being honest with yourself. I know you enough; I've seen you with animals, and even with some people—me for instance. You can be a mother."

She shrugged skeptically.

"Sarima and I managed it."

"I'm not you, and I'm not your wife."

"Elphaba, wait. It takes time, but you'll see. When I come back next year you'll be doing beautifully."

"Don't come back," she answered immediately. "I've told you already, it's better for me. For us."

"And for Liir? Will you tell him anything of me? Or will I just be completely unknown? Especially for a little boy, a father means so much. Please, Elphaba, have a heart in this matter."

"And how am I supposed to explain it to him?" she countered.

"Just be honest. I've never known you to have any trouble with that."

Watching her, he could see his argument starting to have an impact; her resolve beginning to crumble like a castle of sand; her brain moved ideas frantically back and forth. "Once, then," she finally decided after about a minute. "You can visit once a year, on his birthday. You know it?"

"I can remember my own child's birthday."

"So you'll know. Meet me here at midday and send word to an address I'll send to you if you have to do otherwise, and where to find you. I'll do the same. And you can write to me _only if needed_. Only. Is that clear?"

"Clear enough," he said, jubilant.

It was a huge victory with Elphaba, and so, down as he was when he left a few minutes later, Fiyero still felt a glow of triumph. Besides, he had put Liir back, and thus had also won another little battle….

A few days later, while changing Liir's blankets, Elphaba found money tucked into the basket weave. A lot of money. She pulled it out and crushed it in her hand. Her first instinct was to tear it up, or to give it away; anything to show Fiyero that she didn't need him.

But her senses pulled her back. She had no job. Bronia couldn't support three people at once, and this money from Fiyero would keep Elphaba and her son alive for some months, at least. It couldn't have been easy for him to spare all this, but he was determined to do his part. She had to admire that perseverance.

"Damn you, Fiyero," she muttered, tucking the money into a safe place and lying back on the bed. "I do love you."

* * *

**Happy Chanuchrismakwanzaka! To any other religions, happy something sometime; to atheists and agnostics...well, have a cookie, at least.  
**


	9. Chapter 9

**I made my deadline! The obligatory Lurlinemas fluff! It's not **_**Christmas**_**, remember, it's **_**Lurlinemas**_**. Thus I feel no guilt.**

**Disclaimer: **_**Wicked**_** and all its accompanying everythings are the creation and property of Gregory Maguire.

* * *

**

It was his way of helping her from afar, leaving the money. It wouldn't work again, he knew, but he'd find ways to support them—Liir was his son too. It hurt, as usual, remembering them, but this time Fiyero had a salve: He missed Elphaba, true, and now Liir also, but his wife and his children were waiting for him at home. Oh, they'd been there last time—well, except for Liri—but now they were family in more than just name. _Thank you, Elphaba_.

Irji jumped into his arms almost as soon as Fiyero walked through the door, and Fiyero closed his eyes and offered up a quick prayer of thanks before turning to hug Manek and Nor.

"Where's Mama?" he asked them.

"She's her room," said Irji. "Liri's eating."

"And how's Liri?"

Irji shrugged. "Good?"

Fiyero smiled. "That's good. I'm going up now."

"Is there candy?" Nor begged.

He knelt so they were face-to-face. "There _might_ be candy, and other presents," he said, and her eyes lit up, "on the condition that you behave until I come down."

All three children nodded. He smiled at them, and then ran up the stairs two at a time. The sisters were nowhere in evidence; perhaps they'd cottoned on to the idea that he wasn't interested. He knocked once on the bedroom door, just in case. "It's me!" he called.

He heard an intake of breath. "Come in!"

He was inside with the door closed behind him before she'd finished speaking. Sarima was standing at the window, where she'd been watching the view as she nursed Liri. She looked amazing—completely recovered from her illness, and she seemed to have some added glow. And Liri was just as healthy and gorgeous.

God, he was happy to be back with Sarima, Fiyero thought as embraced her, taking care to mind Liri. Such a change from last year. And such a wonderful one too.

"If you have any confessions, don't," she murmured. "Over is over."

"Of course," he whispered back. Nice and ambiguous, he congratulated himself. "I missed you so much. And the kids. Liri's probably a whole different person by now." He stepped Sarima. "May I hold her?"

Sarima grinned and handed Liri over to him.

She was still smaller than Liir, but a hell of a lot bigger than she'd been when he left. "Is this Liri?" He was only half-joking. "My little Liri? She's a giant!"

"Almost average size for a newborn," Sarima corrected. "Which is what she should be now, if only things had gone as planned."

"It's not so bad that they didn't," he said. "I don't mind having her a bit longer than expected. How was she while I was gone?"

"Perfect. Sometimes I think I see her growing." She paused. "It's lovely here with you, but have you said hello to the other kids yet?"

He yelped. "I have, yes, but they're still down there; they must be dying of impatience by now!"

"Fiyero, Fiyero, Fiyero…" Sarima shook her head, laughing, and followed him.

Lurlinemas presents were buried beneath the clothes in order not to arouse questions; the other ones (and the candy) were on top.

The children's expectant faces were so amusing that Fiyero was tempted to procrastinate, but a few seconds was all it took to crack him, and their smiles didn't make him regret it in the least.

Home. It was good.

* * *

A single present on Lurlinemas Eve was their policy—a special arrangement with Preenella if the parents weren't woken up at dawn. It had worked in the past, and it was working now to great effect: A friend's dog had had puppies some weeks previous and Fiyero, who'd never had a dog, had immediately reserved what he considered the cutest puppy to serve as a Lurlinemas present for all four children, Sarima (who very luckily liked dogs—he hadn't really consulted with her before claiming the dog…), and of course himself.

The dog had stayed with Fiyero's friend until tonight, when he'd gone down to get it, put it in a box, and deliver it.

Children are children and dogs are dogs and their response required little of the imagination. As far as they were concerned, Lurlinemas was complete.

They were all together, for once (always, somebody was sick or sulking or simply occupied otherwise). A fire was blazing, Irji and Manek and Nor had decorated the entire castle, the sisters had emerged from their parlor to bake, and the scene in general—family, food, fire, etc.—looked like something out of a book.

The older children were completely absorbed in their new pet. Liri was everywhere, pulling herself to a stand on chairs and legs and gabbling her opinions on everything. Fiyero gathered her onto his lap to keep her out of the way of the candles that Four had lit. knowing that she was in a place where she was sure to have an attentive audience, Liri immediately embarked upon a long and heartfelt monologue that made sense to her if no one else.

"What's she saying?" Sarima asked him.

He shrugged. "Search me. But I like the sound of it. Do_ you_ even know what you're saying?" he asked Liri.

She seemed to answer in the affirmative, and they both couldn't help but laugh. "Here, let me steal her," said Sarima, not waiting for a response. She cooed some nonsense and then turned to Fiyero. "By the way, I think you've won the kids to your side forever."

They looked across the room, where Four was futilely trying to get the children away from the dog. "This is a time for _family_," she told them sternly.

As Manek argued loudly that the dog _was_ family, Fiyero leaned over and whispered very quietly into Sarima's ear, "So let's keep making one. Tonight, at around midnight, our bed?"

Her eyes widened, and then she giggled. "I'll take you up on that offer," she muttered. "But next time please no discussing business in front of the little people."

"Oh, there _will_ be next times," he assured her.

She swung at him, and he kissed her, inspiring noises of disgust from the boys and Nor, but so what?

He had a dog, awesome kids, and Sarima, who was continually beyond words. Sure, he had to put up with politics and in-laws, but insects were insects—tiny, crushable, insignificant. Elphaba and Liir and peace aside, he couldn't think of anything else he could want.

* * *

The flat was lavishly decorated in green and gold—Bronia had squirreled the decorations away in her room and had put them up when Elphaba was out. She'd made gingerbread, and lit some colored candles. Elphaba scowled at the atmosphere as she tried to rock Liir quiet. "I do not like Lurlinemas," she told him. "I never have and I never will. Some of the songs are nice, but even so the words are ridiculous. And please shut up."

He didn't.

"What the hell is the matter with you? You're fed. You're clean, you're warm, you're held, and I can't think of anything else you could require. Unless you want Bronia. She'll be coming back soon. Actually, I hear her now."

"Merry Lurlinemas!" Bronia wished the room at large as she came in. "Elphie, there was a package for you."

"For me? Take Liir."

Bronia exchanged the box for the baby (who did not stop crying) and sat down. "Do you know who might have sent it?"

Elphaba shrugged and pulled off the lid. She opened the letter inside and her brows beetled. "I don't _believe_ this," she hissed.

"From Fiyero?"

"Who else? Infuriating bastard."

Bronia looked over her shoulder. "What'd he do now?" She reached into the box and pulled out a stuffed rabbit. "So he sent a rabbit, is that so bad?"

"I told him not to make contact except in an emergency, and he's sending fucking Lurlinemas presents."

"He gave you a rabbit?"

Elphaba gave her friend a tired look. "It's for Liir, you dolt."

Bronia inspected the toy. "Very nicely made," she observed. She gave it a hug. "Mmm. Elphie, if you absolutely won't let Liir have it, may I? Although I say you should give it to him; he hasn't got a single toy other than those bells I found him, and that little duck that anyway is broken. Every child needs a stuffed animal."

"I never had one…"

"And see how you're turning out. Elphaba, for gods' sake be thankful—he still cares about you and your baby. He left you all that money; he didn't have to. So he sent his son a present. Let him."

"I'd have preferred if he'd sent a silencer. Here, give him back. No, not the rabbit!"

"Sorry."

"It could be that he _is_ hungry." But Liir spat out the nipple and squalled on. "Damn you, little boy."

Bronia turned away from arranging pieces of gingerbread. "Elphaba, what is going on with you?"

"What do you mean?" she snapped as she tried to close her dress with one hand.

"You don't have a short temper, you haven't got any left! It's Lurlinemas, a holiday; even if you don't recognize it at least soften up a bit."

"Soften up?" It was exactly that which Bronia suggested that had put Elphaba in her situation. "I softened up a year ago, and look where it got me." For the first time, she let herself tell Bronia something of her past. "Last year, this time, there was an attempt to kill the Wizard. And it would have been carried out, had not one agent softened her heart for one crucial moment too many. And it doesn't take much guessing to figure out just who that agent was, does it?"

All the anger melted away from Bronia's face. "Oh…" she sat down next to Elphaba, taking Liir from her. She knew that Elphaba didn't take hugs or anything of the sort. "Well…would you like some gingerbread?"

Elphaba shrugged and took a piece, warm from being on top of the stove. The Wizard was probably eating gingerbread too; the whole Emerald City was carousing away the feast day of an unfashionable religion while still under the hand of their dictator. The gingerbread, a moment ago warm and soft and spicy, turned into sawdust.

Bronia hummed a carol and showed Liir the rabbit, which seemed to capture his interest. She put him on the floor to play with it, and he grinned as the soft toy yielded to his fists. "Hey," she said to Elphaba. "He likes it."

"He's shut up, that much I'll say. Thanks to Fiyero, I suppose."

"And he looks so cute with it. Go on, Elphaba. Look and tell me that that isn't cute."

Elphaba looked, and Bronia thought that for a moment something in her face might have softened. But if it did it was only for a second, and then Elphaba said: "He's only four months old and already he's killing his father's present."

Bronia laughed. "Loosen up, Elphaba. It's Lurlinemas, here and in Quadling Country and Gillikin and Munchkinland and, even if they don't celebrate it there, in the Vinkus."

Elphaba's heart tightened. "They celebrate it there." She had a momentary vision of Fiyero and assorted Tigelaars amidst the classic holiday settings. It was a harsh contrast to sitting on the floor in a cold apartment the size of a snuffbox, where even one bauble was an overstatement. For reasons she couldn't fathom, she pulled Liir into her arms. He looked at her with what seemed like confusion, and she quickly put him down.

Happy Lurlinemas to all.


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: **_**Wicked**_** and all its accompanying everythings are the creation and property of Gregory Maguire. **

* * *

A few weeks after Lurlinemas the City seemed to realize that the festivities were over and that winter was here, and the residents holed themselves up in front of their fires. Those without fires or holes used the snow as insulation. Everything was hibernating, and Elphaba took the opportunity to venture out of the apartment.

"Bronia, you're going to suffocate him," she protested as Bronia wrapped Liir in countless layers.

"Elphie, it's freezing. I don't know why you're going out if you don't need to, or why you're suddenly insisting on taking your baby, but if he's going out he's going out insulated. That coat is worn so thin it'll barely do anything." She pulled a hat over his head and tied it firmly.

"When did you buy all of this? And why didn't I see it?"

"I've been buying it since you came here. And you simply haven't been looking. I think. There. _Now_ I'll let you go."

"Thank you. Mother."

"Someone has to."

Snow hung in the air; the whole world was a diaphanous blur. Elphaba ducked her head and plodded through the slush to one of the public gardens. Encrusted with frost, the plants looked almost as beautiful as they did in full bloom. Elphaba smiled as she sat on a reasonably dry bench. This was what she loved about winter. The world was beautiful, and people stayed inside.

Liir was starting to look flushed and drowsy, so Elphaba took off the hat. He blinked a bit as the cool air rushed at him and looked at the world, gone suddenly white. It was, Elphaba realized, his very first time outside. Well, it was as good an entrance as anybody could have.

Elphaba searched herself, as was becoming her habit, for any motherly feelings toward Liir. She'd thought that maternal instinct came automatically, but was starting to consider the possibility that the gene had been left out of her. She had a son, but didn't see anything other than a creature to take care of.

She'd gotten her old job back, and enjoyed it well enough.

Bronia still made cakes.

Things were as they should be.

Nothing incredibly extraordinary happened over the rest of the year for any of them. They worked at their jobs, raised their children, watched the decay of society, and trudged from day to day. They meant to and never did various things.

And Elphaba was _so. Damn. Bored._

* * *

She looked over Fiyero's letter, come unexpectedly in midsummer. "He won't be coming," she said to Bronia. She crumpled it in her hand. "His wife is sick. Apparently some infection she got when their last baby was born. It went away, but now it's back, and he doesn't want to leave her."

"It's…bad?"

"Worse than it was last time, at any rate. She'll probably be okay, but he doesn't want to leave her. He's doing well; some more sisters are wedded and bedded and gone, a relief to him." Elphaba sighed. "And he caught me—Liir's birthday falls past the date he usually leaves; he says that in future he'll come on any day he damn pleases. He'll send a birthday present, and he hopes that Liir and I are well and he loves us both. And that's how he signs it—_love._"

"Are you disappointed?"

Elphaba shrugged. "Yes. No. Maybe. I mean, I don't like that we'll have to keep seeing each other after our relationship should have broken off, but I still love him. I like to be with him. But his duty is to his wife." She lobbed the letter at the garbage pail and missed. "I guess that frees me up for another year."

"What else did you have planned?"

"Bronia, sit down."

Bronia turned from the stove. "Why?"

"Fine, stand. Remember the other day?"

Bronia's face tightened. "How could I not?"

It had been a raid on an Animal shelter. Someone had tattled to the authorities, and it happened that at the time the Wizard had had a whole host of other problems and Animal uprising (as he saw it) was the last straw. On a lovely summer day, Gale Forcers had stormed the building. From there it was a turmoil of the people being beaten, Animals dragged into the street and indiscriminately shot, beaten, and thrown onto wagons for deportation to Southstairs and execution. There'd been a Dog with a newborn litter. However, the Gale Forcers, who at any given time could be seen loitering around, seemed suddenly to have shortage of time, for fast as the Dog was moving, her offspring couldn't keep up, and one soldier—a boy, really; he couldn't have been more than nineteen, with blond hair that fell into his eyes in a particularly boyish way—reached down and grabbed up three Puppies at once, dashing their brains out against a wall in front of their mother. When the Dog leapt for the soldier in a frenzy, teeth bared, he slammed her head with his truncheon. An entire family was demolished in thirty seconds.

Elphaba and Bronia had been in the crowd, but too far back to do anything.

"We didn't do anything then," said Elphaba. "But we can now. I'm getting bored, Bronia. Life is so routine—and I feel so helpless. I need a purpose. I had that in the Resistance."

"I know what you mean…" Bronia remembered the drive, the pride at doing something that mattered. "So what are you doing? Suggesting that we start our own little uprising?"

Elphaba smiled. "Precisely."

Bronia sat down. "And how exactly do you propose we do this?"

Elphaba shrugged. "Be nice if you knew."

They thought for a bit. Finally Bronia said, "My only idea is to try to get information on Palace goings-on and go from there, and we'll decide when we have someplace to go from."

Elphaba nodded. "My thoughts."

"But," Bronia went on. "You have Liir. What if something should happen to both of us? Then what?"

"Every day we suffer the risk of something happening to us."

"You know what I mean, Elphaba. We'd be in far more danger." Bronia reached over and pulled Liir up on her lap. He gurgled something at her, and she smiled. "We can't just leave him here and run off to play with guns."

Elphaba shrugged. "So we'll leave him with somebody."

"Who? Who, precisely, can he stay with? And what do we tell them? 'Hello, we're forming an insurrectionist group; could you please watch the baby and, oh, keep him if we both die?' "

"Works. Except for the terrorist part." Something gleamed in her eye. "We'll simply say that we're going on a date."

Bronia's eyebrows crawled toward her hairline.

"Come on, some people already think we're a couple."

Bronia shook her head. "Sorry, Elphaba. I love you, but not that much. I'd rather not playact that way. And who _would_ we find to watch him?"

No wonder storybook heroes never had children, Elphaba thought as she watched Liir play with Bronia's hair. "Do we have any friends?"

Bronia shook her head again. "To be honest, Elphaba, I don't think this idea would work. Neither of us has a clue, and there's the baby." She put a hand on Elphaba's shoulder. "Sorry."

Elphaba shrugged. "It's alright. I kind of knew that it wouldn't work. I just…I need something to do. You work in that store, but I have nothing and I'm getting bored out of my wits. I need the morning to rest my voice, but I can still have a job during those hours."

"So get one."

"It's not that easy, Bronia." She was irritated. "People don't want to hire a green woman. Unless they have odd sexual tastes, but I don't plan on whoring myself." She hadn't meant to sting; in fact, she'd completely forgotten about Bronia's history, but Bronia didn't take that into consideration.

"Nobody fucking _plans_ on it," she snapped. She put Liir back on the floor and stood up. "No one I can think of would want to fucking ruin their entire life for so little."

Elphaba had no idea what to say. _Sorry _didn't quite cut it. She tried it anyway. "I'm sorry," she said, very softly. "Honestly, I forgot."

Bronia stared out the window at the tiny scrap of visible sky. "I never do." She'd been dizzy with hunger before she was finally able to smile up convincingly at a man, and a half hour later she'd been slumped, hurting and still disbelieving, in an alcove, sobbing too hard even to move to a more comfortable place. After a time she'd wiped her tears, though, and gone to buy a loaf of bread, because it was unlikely that nobody would steal the money if she fell asleep. And although she'd never felt less hungry, she'd eaten the bread, because it was just as unlikely that nobody would take that. Then the next few years had followed.

There were some very long minutes during which the only sound was some soft babbling from Liir, and finally Elphaba picked her son up and went to her room. Bronia had told Elphaba how she had survived "one shit happened", but it was never mentioned again, and Bronia had made it extremely clear that it would not be. Elphaba had understood and obeyed. It was just that she'd forgotten herself today, in the wake of Fiyero's letter.

What was it with him, that he always created Incidents? A natural talent, Elphaba supposed, and an inconvenient one too. But as she'd demonstrated today, Elphaba needed stimulation; needed things to be happening. Which was probably why she'd fallen in love with him.


	11. Chapter 11

**No, this story is not dead. Hopefully over six thousand words should make up for the long wait.**

**Shameless Self-Advertising: **_**In Love and War—**_**it doesn't show up on the page when updated (look in my profile), but it's certainly there, thank goodness.**

**There is a RENT reference in here, and it reminded me that I would like to say a public thank you to President Barack Obama for making June 2009 LGBT Pride Month.**

**Disclaimer: **_**Wicked**_** and all its accompanying everythings are the creation and property of Gregory Maguire. And as for Vondar, I stole another Star Wars name, but so help me they're good. And my thanks to webMD for the information needed. If any of it is disinformation, blame them and maybe some artistic license.**

* * *

Lurlinemas again, and another present from Fiyero.

"You are so lucky," Bronia said for the thousandth time. "I tell you, if I had a guy like that I swear I'd marry him."

Elphaba threw the note in the stove. "The only thing is, Bronia, he's already married. Not to mention that you're already in a relationship, and although I've met her only once, what's-her-name doesn't seem the sort to appreciate sharing you."

"I didn't mean it literally. And I'll take those chocolates if you're so opposed to gifts."

Elphaba handed her the box.

"So tell me, _do_ you still love him?"

Elphaba turned away. "I don't want to speak about him."

"You don't have to give a lecture; just a yes or a no. Really, if I'm going to be eating his gifts to you I ought to know."

"Fine!" Elphaba whirled around. "Yes! Yes, I love him, is that enough for you? I've loved him almost since we met, years ago, and I haven't stopped loving him. If not for his wife I might even have accepted his marriage proposal! Not being able to see him this year devastated me; Liir—Liir—" She turned around again and sank onto a cushion.

Bronia, who hadn't been expecting her friend to tell her so much of her personal life, quickly recovered from her shock and went to sit next to Elphaba. Actual touch would be too much she knew, so she just sat. "Elphie…" she said softly.

Elphaba got up and went to her room.

Bronia stared into the fire for a while, ate some chocolate—suddenly they didn't taste as good—and hummed a carol before retiring to bed.

* * *

Civility had been restored somewhat the next day. Elphaba nodded to Bronia over breakfast and wished her a surly "Have a good day" before Bronia went out for the day. She did not reply to Bronia's own greetings, though.

"Tell me, Adi, have you ever lived with a truly mercurial person?" Bronia asked her girlfriend when she met up with her.

Adi shrugged. "First tell me what the word means?"

"Changeable; volatile; fickle; flighty; erratic. Someone who gives you a box of chocolates one minute and then turns on you with drama about a semi-estranged lover the next?"

"I have never experienced that, exactly. So, your roommate had a hard Lurlinemas Eve?"

Bronia squirmed a bit. "Well, actually she'd gotten the chocolates from her lover, and she gave them to me when I said I wouldn't mind one."

"That's nice of her."

"Elphaba is very nice when she isn't furious."

"Is that why an estranged lover sent her candy?"

Bronia had only known Adi for a month and a half, and they had not quite gotten around to discussing Elphaba's past. "Well, it's a complicated relationship." She explained what she could of it to Adi as they walked to the coffeeshop that was their destination. "And I haven't even gone into detail about Liir—that's their son. Elphaba does not like children. Never has, she says, and that's one reason she was less than happy when Liir was born. She's adjusted to being a mother a bit, but now seems to be in a state of limbo."

Adi nodded.

"He's the whole reason she and Fiyero are still in contact: Fiyero, who _does_ love his son, only found out about Liir accidentally. He and Elphaba finally agreed on the yearly meetings I mentioned to you. He does send Lurlinemas packages, though." It being Lurlinemas, the coffeeshop was packed and they became part of an extremely long and slow-moving line.

"I still don't see how this led to the drama."

Bronia squirmed a bit more and became extremely engrossed in reading the list of various coffee combinations.

Adi nudged her.

"Well, she was being surly and I asked her—stupidly, without thinking—if she loved him. Which was when she whirled around and gave me a history. I tried to comfort her a bit; she went off to her room and has spoken precisely one short sentence to me, something to the effect of 'have a nice time.'"

Adi took on a distinct air of reproach. "I can't say I blame her for that."

"I know." Bronia realized that the line had moved up three people without her noticing. "It's just that she can have these moods even over the small things. I know she's been through a lot, and I don't blame her, but it gets irritating."

"Nothing to do about that but tread carefully."

Bronia sighed. "I know. But she's my friend, and I love her—"

"I am offended…"

"Oh, don't be an idiot!"

"And I'm not supposed to be offended _now_?" But they were both laughing, and Bronia gave her a kiss to prove the point.

The manager saw them and glared.

Bronia shrugged. "Hey, mister—she's my_ sister_."

He huffed. "Right…sisters."

Adi smiled innocently. "We're close. Come on, it's Lurlinemas!"

He shook his head and returned to the customers.

"I almost like running into people like him," Bronia said, "if only because they offer so much opportunity for fun."

They couldn't spend the entire day together, because Adi had a family Lurlinemas dinner to attend—"And I'm sorry you can't come, but my lovely family does _not_ offer fun; they would probably throw the turkey in your face."—but Bronia was occupied well enough for the rest of the afternoon, what with everything going on. An Emerald City Lurlinemas could never be dull, and it was with regret that she realized that she would soon have to be home.

Nobody had bothered to shovel any snow off the street since she'd left that morning, and it was hard going. Bronia was glad to get inside. She opened the door of the apartment only to be met by billowing vapor and somebody coughing. "Elphaba!" she called, trying to wave away the steam. "What happened?"

Elphaba came into view, standing next to the stove and holding Liir, who was wheezing harshly. "It's Liir," she said tonelessly.

Bronia opened the window to let some of the steam out. "Liir! But what—"

"What do you mean, _what_? He's been hacking like this for the last hour. An hour or so after you left I realized that he had a fever. A bad one. It went down eventually, but then the coughing started, and I don't like it…" The kettle was belching steam, but it didn't seem to be doing too much good.

Bronia listened to the cough and her face tightened. "Oh damn, you're right," she whispered. "That is so not good."

"Do you know what to do?"

Bronia shook her head. "You?"

"Not really."

"But you studied the life sciences, didn't you?" Bronia pressed on, moving closer and closer to frantic. "Surely you must know something!"

"It was a college class, not medical school!" Elphaba snapped. "I know something about the respiratory system, but only enough to tell that his has got a problem."

"So what should we do?"

"What is there to do?" Elphaba said tersely, trying to find a better way to hold Liir; that sound was killing her. "He needs a doctor."

"A doctor."

"Yes, a doctor. Or someone, anyone that knows what they're doing, so go find somebody, Bronia, and please not a quack in scarves. I'll do whatever I've got to do to pay, just go." For the first time, Bronia heard something like worry in her voice. "What are you standing there for? Now!"

Bronia ran, thanking everything she could think of that she actually did know someone that could help.

* * *

When she'd been working the streets, during that time long ago that she hated remembering, a man had once approached her. He'd looked wealthy, and tired and aching as she was, Bronia had jumped up from where she was sitting wishing she'd killed herself years ago and pasted a smile on her face. "Good evening, sir," she'd began, but he'd cut her off.

"How much do you charge?"

"You'll get your money's worth, I can tell you that much." She raised an eyebrow and taken a step forward. That was what clients tended to enjoy about her—she didn't play shy.

"Look, Miss, just tell me. How much on an average day, then?"

Miss? She was generally Girly or You the Whore with the Big Hair. She shrugged. "Depends. Anywhere from nothing to a couple hundred. Average, maybe seventy. They prefer the blondes."

"And how much today?"

God, when businessmen came they were usually looking to _forget _about their work. She'd never met anybody with a math fetish. "Sixty-nine, nice and appropriate." She winced internally.

Her prospective client wasn't so adept at hiding his own distaste.

Usually she let them play, but she was so tired tonight. "Look, mister, do you want a figure or a fuck? 'Cause I was about to go to sleep."

His brow wrinkled in concern. "You look ill."

"I haven't eaten, and after where my mouth has been I don't want to. Is that a no?"

"No." He straightened his jacket. "How old are you?"

She was twenty-two. "Eighteen, and a virgin for anybody that wants."

He held a hand out. "Come. We'll go to my house."

"I may charge extra," she said, but rejoiced at the possibility of being tumbled in an actual bed. And his hand was gentle; the last guy might as well have been jabbing a piece of splintery wood into her. He was a fast walker, and she had to trot, something she didn't like in her heels.

"And what's your name?"

"Bronia. You?"

"Jos Vondar."

Jos. She committed the name to memory, and began to run through the various ways to say it in bed. One of Bronia's problems was that she never forgot a name, and now she had so many names that she wanted to forget. Vondar seemed kind enough, though, and he was pretty handsome—Bronia estimated him to be someplace in his thirties; neat chestnut hair; pretty good body as far as she could tell.

This man _and_ possibly a bed? Gods, she was lucky today. She was still marveling at her good fortune when Vondar stopped in front of a large house in one of the more wealthy parts of town. He unlocked the door and showed her inside to a parlor the likes of which she had never seen. It was actually rather pedestrian given the general look of the area, but to Bronia, from whom the most opulent she had ever had was running water, this was royalty. She was almost afraid to touch anything, given how grubby she was (hard to keep clean with no real place to go).

"Please, sit down," Vondar told her, and mentally Bronia sighed. Now it was time for fun, then. She obeyed and then drew her knees up to her chest. She'd abandoned underwear some time ago as a matter of convenience, a gesture often appreciated when she sat like this.

"Please…" He looked a bit uncomfortable. "Would you mind sitting normally?"

She shrugged and obliged.

Vondar sat down beside her. "Bronia, how long have you been…doing what you do?"

"Whoring? A few years." She ticked off on her fingers: "Left home, if you could call it home, when I was sixteen, got involved in other work for a few years, got kicked out, now I'm doing what I can."

"I thought you're eighteen."

Shit. "I never said eighteen _what_."

"How old are you, really?"

"I'm twenty-two," she admitted. "But not any worse than an eighteen-year-old."

He sat up straighter. "Bronia, look."

"Yes?"

"I did not come to your street looking to hire a prostitute. I came to help you."

She looked at him warily. "Help me? Have we met?"

"No. We haven't met, and I had nobody particular in mind when I came."

"So why—"

He looked her over. Not in a lustful way, simply analytical. "Bronia, what do you generally eat?"

Now _there_ was something she'd never been asked before. "What I can get, when I can. I usually have enough money to buy some bread, and something on the side. I get water from the fountains."

Jos winced. "Did you know those are polluted?"

She nodded. "Well, there's the algae floating on the top to clue me in. But I need water, and I only got sick a few times. I know some people with constant dysentery."

"And with such rudimentary bathroom facilities…enough to make any physician cringe."

"I do bathe," she told him. "I have to, in my line of work. A few buckets from the fountain, or rain or something."

"In short, horrible. Fara!" he called.

"Coming!" a woman's voice said faintly.

"Who's Fara?"

"My wife."

Bronia blinked. "She let you bring a whore to the house?"

Jos nodded. "She completely agreed to it, because if you'll remember I said I want to help you."

"As do I," said the woman who had just entered the room. "What's your name?"

"Bronia," said Bronia, "and you would be Fara?"

"I am. Jos, you were out for quite a long time."

He shrugged.

"Never mind, so long as you're back. And now for you…" she said to Bronia.

"A warm bath and a change of clothes first," said Jos. "And then a good meal, for sure, and we'll go on from there."

Fara nodded. "Of course. Bronia, come with me."

Bronia was still looking from one to the other. This had all happened so fast, it seemed. "So no sex?" she said, dazed.

"I should hope not," Fara retorted. "Or he'd get hell and none from me. Come on, Bronia."

"Why am I here?" Bronia asked her as Fara led her up the stairs.

"Well, Jos has been having a run of bad luck lately. He wanted to do a good deed, both to make him feel better about himself and perhaps to appeal to the Unnamed God."

"So I'm a charity case." Not that she minded so much. "But why bring me here?"

"I don't know exactly," Fara said. "But I can understand why he chose to do what he did: He had a sister that disappeared many years ago, and nobody knew why or to where or anything. His family did everything they could to try to find her, but she didn't want to be found. Then, about a year and a half ago, she simply showed up on our doorstep, in a terrible condition, and we could tell from how she was dressed that she must have been a…anyway. Well, we took her in, but apparently she'd only bothered to track her family down because she knew that she was dying and at least wanted them to know what had happened to her. She didn't last the week, and I think Jos has felt responsible for it ever since, seeing as he's a doctor. I've told him that there are some things that can never be fixed, but he won't hear me. I suppose that's why you're here now. Here. Wait a moment while I get towels." She installed Bronia in a bathroom and set the tub filling with hot water.

As Fara was rummaging a room or two over, Bronia looked around the place. It had been some time since she had been inside a real house, and this was the nicest she had ever been in. For starters, there were no spiders, and the bathtub did not have a sheen of mildew.

"Here are towels," said Fara, coming back in and thrusting a pile at her, "and some fresh clothes I never actually got around to wearing—you can't possibly keep what you're wearing now. And it's cold out."

Bronia looked down at her clothes and had to agree that they were rather…minimal.

"So I'll leave now, so you can actually take a bath, and just call for me when you're done, or if you need something, and we'll go from there." She stopped for a moment. "Tell me if I'm being too overbearing, will you? I'm a natural mother hen, but having no chicks I sort of project onto others." She smiled, but Bronia saw a bit of sadness flit across her face.

"You still look young enough for children," she said, and then immediately thought that perhaps she had been too blunt.

Fara didn't seem to care. "I am, and there's no good reason why not. So I just hope. Pray." She left, shutting the door behind her.

Bronia slowly turned the lock. She still could not quite believe this. But even if it was all a dream, she might as well take advantage of it. She quickly stripped off her clothes and stepped into the water. She had thought she'd been doing a good job of keeping herself clean, but apparently there were different standards—the water had immediately gone several shades darker.

That _definitely_ had to go. There were soaps nearby, and Bronia set about to using them. Her hair was also more tangled than she had thought, she realized as she ran a hand through it. Come to think of it, she hadn't looked into a full-length mirror for some time. Probably a very good thing. It took her several cycles of scrubbing to get entirely clean.

"Fara?" she called hesitantly when she was dry and dressed, and almost immediately she appeared.

"You're done, then. You look much better already. Come down now and have some real food."

"Thank you for the clothes," Bronia said. "And they fit perfectly too."

"You can keep them," said Fara. "Goodness knows I have too many."

"No—I really—"

"Just keep them. They'll just languish in a closet otherwise."

This was a new development to Bronia. She had never met anybody that could afford to just give clothes away. Why, when she was a child she had had two dresses: one to wear everyday and one for when that one wore out (a phrase which here means "so threadbare that it falls off"). She was also unfamiliar with having her choice of what to eat, and how much, which she had when she sat down for dinner. Well, when one's budget had never exceeded much more than the price of a loaf of bread, such a thing was to be expected.

When she had finally reached her capacity, Bronia pushed back her chair and got up. "Well, thank you for all of this," she told them. "It's been a great help; perhaps I'll see you—"

"What do you mean, 'perhaps you'll see us'? Have no misconceptions, dear, you're staying here."

She blinked. "Say what?"

"Well, at least until you can support yourself and are settled in a decent place." Fara made it sound common as corn.

"What exactly does this mean?" Bronia said slowly.

"It means that you can leave your old life behind, because you're staying with us now."

Bronia didn't answer.

"I think you're overloading her a bit, Fara," said Jos. "It's a lot to take in in such a short time. And you said you were tired, I remember," he said, addressing Bronia. "Why don't you go to bed now and we can discuss this in the morning?"

Fara led her to a guest room, and Bronia's last thought before falling asleep was that perhaps her faith in humanity could be salvaged.

* * *

She had stayed with the Vondars for nearly six months, and done anything for them that they would let her do, which was frustratingly little. "I don't want to be just a burden," she had protested. "All I really do is sit on your furniture and read your books and eat your food. I need stimulation, and if you were going to suggest getting a job there's only one kind of job available around here and I've had all I can stand of it."

"Oh, I don't know if _all_ the jobs are taken," Jos said. "What were you thinking along the lines of?"

"I—I don't know, actually." Bronia felt somewhat foolish. "I'm rather multitalented. I can do most things, I think.

By the next night Jos had had her employed, and soon enough she had acquired quite a decent sum of money (she suspected sometimes that her bank account had been supplemented by the Vondars, but she knew not to protest)—relatively—enough to buy food and pay the rent on the little apartment she had found. But although she had been so eager to strike out on her own, she found it surprisingly hard to leave. This had become her home.

"We'll still be in the same city," Fara said practically (although she looked teary). "It won't be incredibly hard to keep in touch."

"I don't know," Bronia said. "I'm not very good at that, and if I move around enough…"

"So tell us your new address," said Jos. "You know our address, and my office. And even if we should fall out of touch, just know that I'll always be here for you," he told her as he worked himself free of her embrace, and as Bronia approached his practice she hoped desperately that he still would be.

She was just in time—he was locking the door even as she approached, and to run to his home would have taken her at least another half hour. "Jos!"

He turned around. "Bronia!"

She nodded. "And I'd love to chat later, but my friend's baby is sick and we don't think it looks good; you said when I moved out that you'd always be here for me. Are you?"

"Bronia, I do keep my word. A sick baby, you say? A moment." He ducked into the office and was out within thirty seconds, fumbling the clasp on his doctor's bag.

"So what exactly is the problem?" he asked her as they struggled through the snow.

"Not sure. Liir—that's his name—has got this terrible-sounding cough."

"How old is he?"

"About a year and a half, now."

"Healthy?"

"Not now, but generally, yes."

"And the mother?"

Who could tell anything about Elphaba? "Elphaba…" said Bronia. "Yes, she's fine too. Oh, but just so you don't get shocked out of your wits—she's green. Her skin, that is. She was born that way, completely green, and I'm not joking. She's rather sensitive about it, though, so best not to mention it. It hasn't affected her in any physical way, though."

Jos nodded. It wasn't such a surprise to him, actually—he thought he'd seen a green woman around the Emerald City now and then. "What about the baby's father?"

"Only met him a few times; he lives in the Vinkus. I don't know much about him, although he seemed very nice." Bronia picked up a handful of snow and worked it through her hair—cold as it was, she'd been heavily wrapped and running.

"And how have you been yourself? I haven't heard from you in quite some time."

Bronia blushed. She'd fallen out of touch a while ago. "Since I last wrote? I've kept my job; moved around a bit." No need to mention the Resistance, even if she had been able to. "Haven't gotten into too much trouble. I'm great. How are you and Fara?"

"Wonderful. We have a little girl now, almost a year and a half. Adita."

"Adita! That's my girlfriend's name." Jos didn't respond, and Bronia remembered that, although he wouldn't say it outright, Jos did not approve of her having relationships with women. "And congratulations, of course. What's she like?"

Jos grinned. "Oh, you know I'm biased. But all bias aside, she's perfect. I mean it, really. She's a gorgeous little girl that always behaves. Except for a few times…a day…"

Bronia was smiling too. "Well, you're assured of not being bored."

"Sometimes she reminds me a lot of you."

Bronia shrugged. "Just treat her better than my parents did me. This is the street I live on. I should warn you, my staircase isn't in the best condition. Very unsteady. No one's died. Yet."

Jos looked around. "Is this…the best neighborhood?"

Bronia shook her head. "But it's far from the worst. As a matter of fact, it's the best of the bad." She dug around in her pocket for the key and found it lacking. Had she taken it when she left the house? No, she hadn't. She'd just have to knock, then, and hope that Elphaba heard.

She led Jos up the stairs and heard him grumble the entire way.

"Don't be a baby," she said over her shoulder. "And stay on the top stair; the landing only holds one." She knocked hard on the door. "Elphaba!" she called. "Me!"

A few seconds later the door opened. "You've found someone?" was the first thing Elphaba asked her. "Because he hasn't been doing any better."

"I've got someone," Bronia assured her as Vondar stepped inside. "Jos, this is Elphaba. Elphaba, this is Jos Vondar. He's a doctor, and an old and very dear acquaintance."

Elphaba nodded.

Jos took in the scene—which wasn't too hard, given the size of the place—and held out his hands. "May I have the baby?"

Elphaba closed her eyes for a moment, then handed Liir over.

"Well, it's croup, certainly," said Jos after an inspection. "A bad case, but still more scary than dangerous. I don't have the medicine on me at the moment, but you can come tomorrow—" Liir coughed again and he changed his mind. "I'll go now. Boil some water in the meantime, and let the steam blow in his face. Night air can help too, sometimes, so you might take him out for a few minutes."

Elphaba took Liir back. "Thank you."

"No problem."

"So he'll be all right, then, it looks like," Bronia said in relief. "And you?"

"What about me?"

"Elphaba, if I didn't know you were green I'd say you were white."

"I was worried, that's all!" she said. "The same type of worry I would have experienced had my cat been sick; I just don't want—"

Bronia put a hand on her shoulder. "Elphie. It's all right. Do you want me to hold Liir? He's probably gotten pretty heavy."

"He has," Elphaba admitted. "Thanks. For everything, really." She looked around for something to do, and realized that the kettle had boiled itself out. She went to refill it, but ended up running the water onto her hand instead. It was only with great restraint that she kept herself from swearing loudly enough to send Bronia running to fuss over her. "_Shit,_" she said very quietly, trying to pat the hand dry on her skirt.

Eventually she managed to fill the kettle and get it boiling. Her hand was still burning, and she made a note to have someone else handle the kettle in future if she was too distracted to think straight. Why _was_ she so distracted, anyway? It was just Liir, whom she had never particularly liked in any case.

She took him back just to have something to do with herself, and was glad when Jos returned and broke the silence.

"I got—" He broke off as he saw Elphaba's hand. "What happened to you?"

She shrugged. "Water burns me. I spilled some refilling the kettle. I'll be fine; I've gotten worse."

He took her hand anyway and looked at it. "This isn't fine. It's blistering. Did you dry your hand?"

"Of course I did!" She should have covered the hand; this whole business was embarrassing her.

"Well, you can't let this go completely untended. I have an ointment you can use—"

"Thank you for the concern," Elphaba interrupted, "but about Liir?"

He nodded. "I have the medicine," he said, taking a small bottle from his pocket. "I'll give him some now, and the rest of the dosage is on the label. Can I have a spoon?"

Bronia squeezed her way to the container where they kept mismatched cutlery. "There is at least one, I'm sure," she called. "I just put everything handle up…"

Jos shook his head. "Living with her is never boring, is it?" he said to Elphaba.

She managed a smile. "Never. She's got enough spirit to make this place explode; she's already made one hole—"

"Shoddy architecture, and I was trying to _help_ you, for Oz's sake! Jos, I give you a spoon."

"Thank you. And just a suggestion: find a better method of storage." He poured a spoonful of something dark and syrupy. "Elphaba, do you think he'll swallow this on his own or try to spit it out?"

"He should swallow it, I think," she said. "He's usually cooperative about these things."

Indeed, Liir swallowed the medicine with no objection.

"You're lucky," said Jos. "My daughter would still be fighting. Now, give Bronia the baby and we'll see about your hand."

Elphaba obediently transferred Liir, but tensed as Jos took her hand.

"Are you scared of doctors?" he asked. "I don't bite, you know."

"I'm not _scared_," Elphaba said as Jos spread a cream over the burn. It was more soothing than she would have herself admit. "I just hate being the center of attention."

"Somehow I just can't picture you as the quiet type," he said as he wound a bandage around her hand. "From the very little I've known you, I'd say you're the sort that speaks her mind."

"She is," Bronia interjected. "She's just too independent for her own good."

Elphaba glared at her.

Jos fastened the bandage. "That's done," he said, "and the baby's looking better. Just make sure he stays warm, especially if you're going outside, and hydrated, and come to me if anything else develops. And take care of that hand!"

Elphaba glanced ruefully at the bandage. "I will. Thank you. What do I owe you?"

"Owe me?" He seemed surprised. "Oh. Nothing. Any friend of Bronia's is one of mine."

Elphaba stared at him. "No. I have to—"

"The most I ask is that you take care of your son. Honestly." He turned to Bronia. "And you—come to me for anything you need, remember. Come to visit too." He smiled. "Or Fara will have my head."

Bronia nodded. "Have a good night," she said as she gave him a hug. "And I'll come see you and Fara and Adita sometime, I promise."

"That's good, because Fara was ready to send out a search party. A good night to you too."

Bronia stared at the closed door for a few moments after he left. "Just so you know," she said to Elphaba, "Jos Vondar is not an old boyfriend. He and his wife helped me when I thought I was beyond all help. I owe them everything. Coming out here in the middle of the night and then going to his office and back for free is completely typical of him."

"He's honestly like that all the time?"

"All the time I've known him, and I lived with the Vondars for nearly a year. His wife is exactly the same. They have a daughter now; I'm glad. They're amazing."

"You did the same thing for me. Rescued me and kept me around."

"I did?" Bronia looked surprised—the same way, in fact, that Jos had looked when Elphaba had mentioned payment. "Oh. They must have rubbed off on me, then. Speaking of you, you look tired. Should I watch Liir for you?"

"No. Thank you, but no thank you. I can watch him myself."

So Bronia went to sleep and Elphaba stayed up with Liir.

Her feelings had changed, she suddenly realized, though she was not sure when: From the time she'd realized she was pregnant until quite a while after she'd given birth, she'd wished he'd never happened. Then she'd learned to tolerate, and was sometimes even amused, by him. Now—now she felt that if Liir died she would be devastated. She'd actually grown to enjoy him, Elphaba realized. No—she _loved_ him.

She sat still for awhile, just processing that information. She loved Liir. She still didn't feel like going all mushy and hugging and kissing, but that was just her personality, Elphaba realized. The little boy in her lap—not just an inconvenience anymore. Interesting—and a bit scary, because now that she knew she really felt it, and suddenly she felt a great deal more like a mother as she moved her hand, almost shyly, to stroke his hair. It felt right, somehow.


	12. Chapter 12

**I'm sorry, guys. Combined writer's block and workload make it that I just can't finish my work. As I am doing with this, I will post summaries of what I have planned, and in some cases complete chapters. **

**As for this story:**

The next piece of substance is Liir's first meeting with Fiyero. He is two years old, and notices his mother's nervousness that morning.

He and Elphaba meet Fiyero in a public square. From there they go to a park; Liir plays while his parents discuss him. Conversation turns to Fiyero's family in the Vinkus, and we learn that Sarima's illness has made her incapable of having any more children.

Years pass. Many of them. A few more of the sisters get married.

Another meeting between Liir, Elphaba and Fiyero. It begins to rain, and Fiyero brings them to his hotel room. Minutes later, a concierge arrives bearing a letter from the Vinkus, telling Fiyero that his wife has just been taken seriously ill. Fiyero tells Elphaba to take care of all his loose ends in the EC, and leaves immediately.

Sarima dies. Fiyero and his children are devastated; Sarima's remaining single sisters can barely conceal their delight.

Peace is made between the Arjiki and Scrow.

That spring, before leaving for the EC, Fiyero tells his children that soon the year of mourning will be up, and that he wants to remarry (Sarima has given him specific instructions regarding this matter). He tells them of the existence of Elphaba, and of Liir, whom he admits is their half-brother. The children are a bit hesitant, but not averse to the idea of their father marrying again.

Fiyero goes to the EC, meets Elphaba, and eventually pops the question. Elphaba refuses, explaining that each time Fiyero has entered her life he has brought more disruption almost than she can bear. Fiyero is upset, but understands. The two do become lovers again nonetheless.

Late winter, Fiyero is dozing in his study when one of the sisters comes to tell him that a green woman with a young boy is waitin in the entrance hall.

Back to Elphie's point of view, some time back: she decides that she is ready to marry Fiyero; she brings Liir around to the idea. Bronia is happy for her friend, but crestfallen when she realizes that Elphaba and Liir will be moving so far away. Elphaba suggests that she marry; Bronia informs her that no one would want to marry a woman who's been had so many times; she also reveals at this moment that she at one point picked up a disease from one of her clients, and is now unable to have children.

Hokay So back to Kiamo Ko. Yero is taking a brief nap in his study when Four comes in to inform him that a woman—a green woman—and a young boy and a dog have arrived at the castle; the woman has told her to tell him that "she is ready."

Fiyero nearly kills himself running/tumbling down the stairs, where indeed, it is Elphaba and Liir.

Switch to his children's point of view: school is out early. They tramp home cheerfully, an d their curiosity is aroused by the carriage outside the door. They enter to find their father kissing a strange woman.

Everybody is introduced; the kids take Liir off to interrogate him while Fiyero shows Elphaba to their room.

Skip to that night. There is some conversation, in which Elphaba cautiously consents to consider children.

A bit of father-son interaction between Liir and Fiyero.

Sisters-Elphie confrontation; Fiyero breaks up the fight.

Eight years pass. A couple of children are born.

One peaceful breakfast, the news comes of Nessie's demise. Elphaba goes to the funeral.

Elphie arrives at Colwen Grounds. She meets her father. Much is as it is in the book, albeit with the background history of Elphie having a family.

Enter Glinda. There is a joyous if awkward reunion, as they A: haven't seen each other for twenty years and B: at least Glinda still feels something for Elphie. They catch up. They discuss Elphie's kids for a bit.

Bronia comes, and we learn that she has married Jos Vondar's brother, a widower with three little boys.

Then…I…haven't thought that far ahead.

Rest assured, though, there is a happy ending. Maybe an epilogue. You can write it if you like, and even send it to me. In fact, there'll be a contest, and whoever writes the best epilogue gets it published. I must receive at least seven entries, though, and they must be within a month of this update.

**My apologies for having to cull my stock like this,**

**-HCO**


End file.
